The inspiration for this particular mask came from the movie Pan's Labyrinth. In the movie, there is a character known as the faun. He's actually pretty creepy looking, but I found him quite enchanting. Here's a picture of how he is depicted in the movie.
Kind of cool, right?
But before I did any of the plastering, I made the horns first. I used a thick wire used for jewelry making as my base and wrapped tin foil around it. I kept adding more foil until I was happy with the thickness. Then, to keep the horns together, I used masking tape.
All done with the horns for now.
The next part was to start making the actual mask. I used plaster strips found at my local craft store. This part is where the tutorial comes in handy. I called my best friends - Rachel and Stephanie - over to help me out. We decided to use Rachel as the model for the mask.
It was easier to have her lay down on the floor for easier clean up. Here are her selfies from her experience. (Use more Vaseline than you think is necessary. We learned the hard way. RIP Rachel's skin.)
"Is the pain over yet?"
It's over.
It took about 12 hours for the mask to feel completely dry. Once I felt it was dry enough I wet some more strips to place over the eye areas and around the edges. Since it was only 1-3 layers it took less time to dry, so I then went ahead and outlined what I wanted to cut off/out.
I used an exacto knife and a box cutter because I was too lazy to go out and buy carving tools. It took patience and literally an hour and a half to cut through all the plaster.
After sanding down the edges and putting gesso on the plaster, I tapped on the horns.
Once the horns were in place I put one more layer of plaster on the mask and all over the horns to make sure they would stay in place. Plaster dries pretty hard but it's very fragile. I had some cracks show up but I painted over them with modge podge.
For the horns to look like they were actually horns, I got the idea from a youtube video to use yarn as the grooves. You gently wrap the yarn around the horn and then paint on a layer of modge podge then let it dry. I used about 3 layers of modge podge to seal the yarn in place.
I let the mask sit overnight again to make sure the modge podge was dry. The next day I took out my paints and went to work. My idea was for this faun to be from an ancient forest, so the main colors I wanted to use were green, gold, and brown. Since it's a Venetian mask I simply had to use some glitter and jewels.
To make the horns appear aged, I sponged on metalic gold paint. Doing so made the grooves become highlighted. I used black paint under each groove to make them cast a shadow, adding more depth onto the horns.
Here I drew thin lines with a gray marker. These lines are where I wanted to place my glitter. To do so I used a thin brush with modge podge and sprinkled the glitter over the design.
The jewels were stick on jewels bought from my local craft store. After they were in place I used modge podge yet again to seal them into place.
I decided I wanted to use feathers. I had bought a long strip of feathers sewn together and hot glued said strip onto the back of the mask. My intention was to have them fan out behind the mask but the feathers were so stiff. The only way they fan out is when the mask is being worn.
And that's it. Pretty easy~
·Who are you: name, major? Alisanna House, Fine Arts major.
·Why did you choose this project? After watching Pan's Labyrinth and being in total awe of the faun character, I thought "How cool would it be to make a mask with horns?" So basically, I wanted to do something with horns since I had never made anything with horns before. Or with plaster.
·How much time did it take? Mmm...I think it took maybe 2 and a half weeks to make. I had to spread everything out because plaster doesn't dry quickly.
·How much did it cost? I had to buy more green paint and I wanted to be adventurous with metallic paint so it came to about $45 in total. Glitter isn't as cheap as I thought, either.
·What was the biggest challenge? Sanding the plaster was hard. Trying to make the horns even in width and length was hard, too. Definitely trying not to hurt my friends face was a challenge. At least her eyebrows are safe.
·If you had it to do over, what would you do differently? More Vaseline! I also would make the eye shape more symmetrical and even. As i said in class, I think making the feathers by hand would be a fun thing to attempt.
.jpg)
