Masquerade

I've always had a fascination with masks - quite simply I love the way they conceal - but reveal in equal measure. It's always interesting to see how people respond to each other when they have a mask to hide behind.

This mask has been constructed in stages, I used a shop bought mask as a template (had cling film stretched over it to prevent sticking). The layers were built up gradually, using different colours of cartridge paper and pva glue, so that I could tell what had already been done. The leaves were made out of wire and bent to form naturalistic shapes, reminiscent of the green man motif often found in old churches. Once enough layers had been made (to make it strong enough to retain it's shape) a couple of layers of tissue paper were added to give it a smoother finish - then I applied gesso, and again built up the layers. Finally sanding it to give a finer finish.

The whole mask was sprayed with red oxide coloured paint, which gave me a blank and uniform canvas. Then details were applied with acrylic, as with so many of these things I got a little carried away as the idea had been to keep it simple but I found it such an enjoyable process I kept coming back to it to add some more... finally having to put my paint brushes down due to time constraints more than a end point