MASK

This is a Tribal Mask ,it takes inspiration from the colours and the stripes of the animal tiger . It was made because of an assignment given to us in Creative Design course in IITM.

Newspaper

Water

Clay

Clay modelling tools

Cutter

Tape

Paint brushes

Acrylic paint

Make a basic sketch of your mask on a sheet of paper , this will be helpful for future references when the mask is being made !!! It is absolutely fine if your final mask does not exactly match this , because the above one is only a rough outline !!

Crush Two Or More Newspapers Into A Oval Face Shaped Structure . This Is Going To Act As A Base On Which The Clay Is Going To Be Molded Upon For Our Mask. It Must Somewhat Like This .

Once you receive the clay roll and knead the clay multiple times before using it .Spread the well kneaded and rolled clay on top of the newspaper base , do not spread it too thin or too thick as this may affect the final texture of the mask !! spread it evenly on all sides and then start to mold the clay to attain the required outline of your mask according to your initial sketch !!

Now make a bold of your desired mask, this can be in any shape according and it varies according to the type of mask that you have decided to make , since mine was a tribal mask I had decided to go with the above shape !!! Additional clay can be used to create all those elements which have to standup from the surface of the mask , in my case the eyebrows , the nose etc needed them (again this varies from mask to mask).

Once the molding is done , now we need to add the engravings to the mask , these engravings can be done by using clay tools or also by using blades ( whichever is more comfortable ). Again the engraving that is needed depends on what type of mask you are about to make , in this case I needed the engraving of the eye of the mask and that is what I have done in the above image !!!

Now is the right time to add any other additional elements to the mask , this can be horns if you are attempting to create a devil mask or this can also be ears as in my case above . However the most important thing is to attach these elements correctly or they will eventually break or fall of when the clay starts to dry , for this always use water between the two surfaces of the clay that you are trying to attach and also smudge the edges of the two different clay that you want to attach by using clay tools !!!

Start Painting the mask after applying a layer of varnish to it and letting it dry . Mine looked like this in midway of the process !!!

This is how my mask looked like finally !!