Clay Mask

Making a mask from scratch using clay modeling techniques! we will be using paper clay to make a mask today

You need 1 box of paper clay, 1 newspaper, tape, a piece of cloth and clay tools for cutting and shaping,Primer paint, water paints.

to give the mask the correct curvature and shape, we need to make in on top of a ball-like shape. we can easily achieve this by crushing a newspaper into a ball, then taping it down onto our desk so it doesn't move to much.

take 1/4th of your clay out of the main bunch and keep it seperately.

Roll the clay you have into a ball. then flatten it out until it is a circle no less then half a centimeter thick. now drape this circle on top of the newspaper ball you made. now with a cutter tool, draw outlines of all the shapes you are going to make and add features such as nose or eyebrows using the extra clay.

you can attach these external pieces by rubbing a little bit of water at the base of where you are attaching, this acts as a sort of glue for you to stick it to the main mask. remember to smoothen the edges after sticking it. you can do so with any smooth curved clay tool after making it moist.

Now, cut out all the holes and shapes you require in the mask for example the eye holes.

remember, these holes will not be neat, so after you cut them out (using the cutting tools) you will have to manually smoothen the holes again. You can also make designs like I have in the above mask. I here am attempting to make a mask that has a very aged look, giving it a sense of antiquity, hence I allowed the clay to crack in many places, and made uneven cuts in the eyebrows along with showing damage in the eye shape. You may attempt your own style, and you can smoothen out the clay using a little bit of water (dip the tip of your finger in water and use that finger to smoothen the clay)

If you are trying as I am to create a sense of age, then you can skip smoothening for the most part. but make sure the mask itself is stable.

This step is simple, paint the entire mask with a primer. this will help the paint stick in the next step. wait upto 10 minutes for it to dry before proceeding

Now its time to paint the mask!!

here is the point where you can let your creativity run wild, but make sure you start out with a plan. maybe make a small rough sketch of your mask and try out different colour combinations.

For the sake of example I will explain how I attempted to bring out the aged affect I was trying for.

I choose the general colour of the mask to be blue, along with bright red lips and black eyebrows, I chose a bright yellow to create a contrasting effect for all the designs around the eyes and cheeks.

for my effect, I allowed a gradient of blue to show uneven fading which occurs in nature. I kept the top and bottom thirds of the mask dark blue while I let the rest show a faded duller blue. I gave the yellow a bleached look too around the eyes and made sure that eye brows were a deep black.

if you notice, I coloured one of the two shapes above the eyebrow red and the other I left light blue, this was to show how the years had slowly bleached it by showing the sharp contrast between them.

Wait for the paint to dry, now you can put your newly made mask on any stand! And now its done! I hope you enjoyed making this mask, I sure did!