Two Masks in process, 2023

I have been making masks again!

I use a simple process of applying papier-mache onto an inflated balloon.  Then cut and shape a bit, maybe add a few things, and paint.

These masks were begun last summer, then languished in the studio for a full year.  Recently I pulled them out and worked on them while house-sitting for friends. 

The yellow one was just a plain bowl-shaped thing to begin with.

I wanted to create something interesting without a lot of 3D projections... this one can be turned 180˚ for a happy or sad/angry expression.

And I did create a bit of raised effect by adhering the cut-out bits onto the surface.

Begun painting on the blue one.

Here they are gesso'd.

And here they are with some more paint on them.

I plan to work quite a bit further on the yellow one, to create a more fully realized expression.

The clean simplicity of the blue one is appealing, but I may adjust the colour a tiny bit just to enhance depth in the form.  Also, its eyebrows are made of corrugated cardboard, and I hope it will be possible to tuck feathers or grasses into the holes to create really bushy eyebrows, wouldn't that be fun?

Since the spring of 2020 I have made 12 masks including these.

At some point I hope to find a way to show them, hopefully in a public art gallery, beacuse all together they are starting to talk amongst themselves, and I am becoming interested to find out how other people might perceive the conversations.

Thank you as always for reading!