Growing Branches: Madeleine's Mask

Madeleine, my niece, collects masks. We wanted to get her one for graduation, but couldn't find anything we were happy with so I decided to make her one. I went straight to Pinterest because, as James often says, I am the "knock-off queen".

I originally thought that I would have to make the mask itself. I pinned several ideas for making papier mache masks. One set of directions told you to use your own face for the structural contours of the mask. Imagining myself with Vaseline smeared all over my face and slimy strips of newspaper draping my nose, I shifted gears and began searching the Internet for places to buy paintable masks.

Now I was doing all this planning on my phone on our way home from New Orleans Sunday afternoon. I had four days to get this mask done while also trying to get my garden and yard ready for the Master Gardener's end-of-the-year tour (which is a whole 'nother story)!! I also needed to bake a cake for new neighbors that have just moved in up the road and the article for the newspaper was due this week, too. My stress level was beginning to rise, but I am hard headed and was determined to have a mask for Madeleine!

Any way, when we passed through Monroe, we stopped at Michael's and bought a mask form. This product could be used to help form a papier mache mask of your own making, or serve as the mask itself because it was paintable. Project saved!! Stress level recedes!!

Scrolling through examples of masks, I found that my favorites were the Day of the Dead masks also know as sugar skulls. I gathered several examples and laid out all my materials.

The mask for was make out of a weird material and was very smooth. I painted it with an undercoat of Gesso so that it would have a more textured feel.

Then I drew on the designs which were an amalgamation of the examples I had printed.

Now it was just time to paint. It looks just like a third grader was doing it, but remember everything on a sugar mask is outlined in black which will make it all look so much neater.