African Mask Project

After we are done with the coral painting project, once again, we have a new project. This project is called "African Mask Project". Right now in Language A class, we are reading a script called Anansi. It's a story that includes African stories with African animals. Our job is to create masks for each character in the story ready to be use for the play we are going to perform! We have to make sure that the mask represent African art meaning that we have to show african patterns and african colors. It also needs creativity in design and media. And it needs to communicate the characters through the Elements of Art which are colors, lines, shapes, textures, tones, and patterns.

Here are some examples of real African Masks:

[African Masks] Reflection I

In the first lesson, Mr. Pat told us to try some African patterns with the crayons on a piece of paper. I really enjoyed drawing patterns with squares, tri-angles, and lines. When I was a child, I used to draw patterns that I could think of and now it's the same feeling. When I draw each pattern, I started with one shape and draw a lot of that shape. Then I would start a new shape near the previous one. Then I would add some straight or squiggle lines. Then I might add some dots to it. I used different colors for each pattern so that I could try all the colors. As usual, I sat next to June, and I thought that she did really well. All her patterns seemed like African patterns! She used only brown and some black. She used lines, dots, and shapes just like I did, but somehow she did it so that it does look like African patterns. Then I realized that brown and black do give African feelings because they are earth colors just like Mr. Pat said!! So after that, I tried to use brown as well, but after I got some patterns already, I continue to draw other patterns with other colors. At the end of the lesson, I ended up with a few patterns. I really liked the patterns I drew because normally I always liked to look at patterns, so now when I get to create my own, it feels great!

[African Masks] Reflection II

Last lessson, we started to do the plans. We had to decide what characters we were going to make and it was first come first serve so the easy ones were taken really quick. I decided to pick the 'gerbil' even though I didn't know what it was. Then Mr. Pat and others told me that it's a combination between rat+mouse+hamster but I still couldn't really get the picture. But China drew a little picture of it so that I would get the picture so then I started planning. I started drawing the face of the gerbil and then it was time to put the African patterns in. From reading the book, I get the impression that the gerbil is a mean and arrogant character. He didn't give the ratbat a chance and he always say sarcastic things. So from that, I tried to make it look mean by putting shapes like tri-angles, squares and lines that are sharp because when we see sharp and pointy things, I think that we would get a mean and angry feeling. When I added enough patterns, I started to put some color on. I tried to use hot colors like red, orange, yellow and some black to communicate that my character is mean. I didn't want to use cool colors like blue, green, purple because people might get the wrong impression from my character!

[African Masks] Reflection III

Last lesson after I finished planning, it was time to start making the actual mask. I went to find materials and I found a cardboard paper. I started drawing the face of a gerbil. I asked my friends whether the size was right and they said that it was too small so I had to do it over again. I had to change it a couple of times until it was just right. Then I had to cut out the face. The cardboard was quite thick so it was really hard to cut!!

After I got the face cut out, I started to work with the eyes. I had to make holes so that the actor would be able to see. I figured out that the eyes actually have to be low or else the whole structure would be changed because of the way the face was planned. With the fact that the teeth is located where the mouth of the actor is, I had to move the eyes of the mask down so that it would be at the same location as the real eyes. Figuring out how big and how far apart the eyes are wasn't easy. I drew the outlines couple of times and I also erased them a couple of time. I asked my friends to try it on and tell me where their eyes are so I could see how apart the real eyes are. Then when I was pretty sure with everything, I went to cut the holes out. The size was perfect!!

After that, we still had some class time left so I went to ask Mr. Pat whether taping my mask or painting it white would be better. He said that painting it would be just fine but I had to be careful and make sure that the texture is smooth. I painted white on the whole mask and then paint white over the white again! I also had to paint the sides so that it would look good. When I finished, I was quite pleased with the results because it was smooth and I can hardly see the color of the cardboard.

This is the picture of the mask:

[African Masks] Reflection IV

After I was finished with the white background, I went after school and started making the patterns. I drew some pencil lines to start with on the ears so that I know where to paint. I painted red and orange on the outside, then paint brown and black. During this process, I had to be really careful that the colors are smooth and that the colors won't lay on top of other colors and go outside where it supposed to be. Then I continue the patterns of the sides. I realized that the lines were not thick enough to be painted with paint so I decided to use markers instead. Then I continued with the down-cheeck part. From there I started painting again. The colors I used were really African because there were brown, orange, and red which were earthy colors!

This is what it looks like:

Then after I finished with that after school, I continued to work in class. I started to paint the face yellow and used an orange marker for the nose. After that I outlined the eyes, eyebrows and down cheeks part with black marker. After that, I went to make whiskers. First I didn't know what material to use as whiskers but I realized that I could use strings. I went to mix the color orange and then I put the six strings into the paint. Then I dry them and stick them with TOA glue onto the mask. When I did that, it means that I was really close to being done!! But I knew that I need to add something else so I went to ask my friends. They didn't really have an idea either so I went to ask Mr. Pat. He said that my gerbil needs to be more cute, fluffy and stupid! I was really confused because I just didn't know how to make it fluffy and cute while it supposed to be mean and not friendly! Before I could do anything, the time was over so I left my mask like that.

This is a picture of me and the mask when it is painted (no whiskers yet):

[African Masks] Reflection V

After that lesson, I went in after school again to try to finish up. I really didn't know how to make my mask fluffy. The only thing I knew was that the material I should use was cotton because it's soft and fluffy! But I just didn't know how to put cottons onto my mask. China suggested that I should just dip the cottons into the water+paint and replace them on the 'down-cheek' part where there were red and brown patterns! First I totally disagree because I said that I would definitely not take off my whiskers. I also said that it might become a mess and it might fail. But in the end I didn't really have a choice. I tooked the whiskers off and started. China helped me dip the cottons into the red and brown paint that was mixed with water. We had to dip it in one by one and make sure it's filled with paint. Then squeeze it to let the unnecessary paint come out. Then use our fingers to squeeze it to make sure that it looks like a square so that it fits the pattern I already made. When I finished, I went to dry the cottons with the dryers. Back then I was really worried because it turned out to look not so good because it smudged the black marker lines and from squeezing it, I also dropped some paint on the face. When it started to dry, it looked better and I think it was pretty good. I fixed up the face by painting yellow over the stained spots and I also outline everything that was smudged again.

This is the picture of my mask, in the process of putting the red cottons down:

[African Masks] Reflection VI

After that after school when I finished with the down-cheek part, there was one class left to work on our masks. I went in not really knowing what to do because I already put cotton on but when it dried, it was really hard like a rock! So Mr. Pat suggested that I should just put cotton around the head at the back. I knew what he was trying to suggest and I thought it was a good idea but the problem was I thought that it would look really strange! But as always, I had no choice because that was the only suggestion I got. But before I started, Mr. Pat said that I should tie the strings to the mask first. So I went to measure the strings with the mask and my head. When I got the length, I cut the elastric string and tied them to the mask. After that I went to get the cotton and double-sided tape. I stuck the cotton down with the double-sided tape. In the end I thought it looked pretty good. I was quite proud of my work but when I looked at it carefully, I thought that there was not enough african patterns. So because of that I added little patterns on the top, the sides and all around the eyes.

This is the picture of my mask when it was done in class:

When people look at my mask, they said that the cottons made the mask look not so agressive, soft and fluffy. Personally I didn't want to audience to feel that the gerbil is cute because in the book, he's not such a nice guy. In my own thoughts, I think that mean people can't really be cute. Some of them liked the nose because the spiral patterns gave a stupid and dizzy feeling. The red and brown cottons (that are now really hard and do not look like cottons anymore) made the mask look African because of its color and the texture. For improvement, if I have the chance of doing this mask over again, I would add even more patterns so that I could disguise the yellow face. I didn't really want to show that much yellow and I didn't want it to be the main focus or the dominant thing. So next time, I could include more patterns to draw the audiences' attention to them instead of the yellow face. Also if you look at my plan, then you can see that there's supposed to be an area between the nose and the teeth. And that area was supposed to be in beige. But in the final product, it turned out that the nose, whisker, and the down-cheek part were very near to the teeth. My mask ended up like because there was not enough space to include everything so I had to change the mask and cut the beige part out.

This is the picture of the final product of my mask:

This is the picture of my mask on the back:

Finally, this is the picture of Sun wearing my mask: