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Travel & Leisure: Lace Mask
Tanya A. Brown
I've had something of a love affair with masks since an early childhood trip, during which my family and I island-hopped across the Pacific to Australia. Along the way we picked up the usual gimcracks, wood carvings and exotically dressed dolls manufactured for the tourist trade. (I'm sure that if I upended the dolls, the word "China" would be stamped somewhere between their feet and their necks!)
In Fiji, my mother fell in love with a mask. Made of a blonde wood, it was remarkable for its smoothness, blindly staring eyes, and lack of ornamentation. It symbolized the exotic: by God, we might live in a single wide trailer house, but we were world travelers! The creepy staring eyes on that mask would never let us forget it, either.
Naturally, when I grew up, I acquired my own collection of equally creepy masks, fanged and horned deities and monsters from the likes of China, Bali and Africa. Overnight visitors learned to leave the lights on, lest they be plagued by nightmares. From there, it was a short step to making my own.
Mask-making isn't an unusual craft, of course. Mardi Gras masks are of course a perpetual favorite, bringing out everyone's worst impulses regarding gold spray paint. Who hasn't been psychologically scarred by the sight of a feathered and beaded monstrosity leering down from a hall or bathroom wall?
Today, though, with the ready availability of mask forms and plaster cloth, we needn't be restricted to upchucking a few feathers on a piece of white ceramic. Mask-making is fun, easy, and inexpensive, and the surface treatment can be adapted to whatever medium one enjoys, whether it's beads, lace, polymer clay or mask.
Supplies:
- Mask form - see instructions
- Plaster tape - see instructions
- Metal hanger and pliers if to be hung
- Hole punch, elastic, padding if to be worn
- Embellishments, paint
- Scrap container for moistening strips
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You'll need a mask form. You could simply use a plastic mask from the crafts store; those have the advantage of being adult-sized and readily available.
If you want to try something a bit different, Roylco manufactures mask forms depicting various animals and child-sized human ethnic types. As of this writing, these are available at Dick Blick, listed as animal face forms and multi-cultural face forms.
You can also sculpt your own mask or shape one over your own face. However, that's beyond the scope of these instructions. If you want to try that, one good resource is the The Prop Builder's Mask-Making Handbook by Thurston James.
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The mask will be made of plaster cloth, a cotton gauze infused with plaster of Paris. It's the same substance that's used to make casts for broken arms, and is readily available at crafts stores. It has the virtues of being easy to work with and yielding a strong and lightweight product.
Plaster cloth comes in various widths and lengths. A 4 x 180" roll will make one or two masks, depending on how big and fancy the mask is. However, buy whatever width you can find. It really doesn't matter how wide the roll is; you're going to end up cutting it into a bunch of smaller pieces.
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You can work on either the inside or outside of the mask form, but working on the inside seems to give a little smoother result.
Turn the mask form upside down. Cut 30-40 little squares and rectangles of plaster cloth. These should range in size from about 1/2" to 1" wide, and don't need to be cut exactly. You'll end up cutting more as you go, but this will get you started.
Dip the pieces in the water, then start smooshing them into the detailed areas of the mold.
Note - if the mask is to be worn, don't cover up the eye sockets.
Very important - use a scrap container for moistening the plaster cloth. Don't pour the resulting plaster water down your drain! The plaster particles can harden and start to clog your drains. |
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Cover the inside surface of the form with a layer of moistened plaster cloth. |
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The entire form will gradually get covered with plaster cloth. Bring the edges of the cloth up even with the edge of the mold. |
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Once one layer is in place, add more layers for strength. Since you're already carefully defined the detailed areas of the mask, the pieces of plaster cloth can be longer and wider. Three or four layers of cloth should make the piece strong but lightweight. |
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Let your mask set up for a couple of hours before attempting to remove it from the mold, then let it dry overnight. |
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Notice that the mask shown in the previous photo is fairly rough in appearance. If you're going to paint yours, as opposed to gluing stuff all over it, you may want to smooth the surface. You can try sanding it with fine-grit sandpaper, but you may get better results by filling in the cracks and holes first. A little Plaster of Paris works fine for this, as does wall spackling putty, which you may already have on hand. Fingers work fine for spreading and smoothing.
If you wish to make the mask wearable, use a hole punch or awl to punch holes for elastic on the sides of the mask. You may also wish to poke a couple of breathing holes as well. Although these masks don't fit particularly tightly, they can get a tad claustrophobic.
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Here's one version of the lion mask above. The eye areas were left uncovered when the mask was formed, and elastic holes were made after the mask dried. 3/8" wide elastic was run through the side holes, because that's what was on hand.
The mask was painted with el-cheapo acrylic craft paints and details were added with a Sharpie. The mane was formed from exquisite 1980s vintage acrylic yarn, which was glue-gunned around the edge.
This sort of mask is fine for running around and playing in for a few minutes at a time. However, if worn for an extended period, say for a school play, it could get uncomfortable. In such a case, it would be wise to glue some padding on the areas which will touch the face. |
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This mask was formed the same way as the lion mask above, using one of Roylco's face forms. It's destined for decorative use, so no eye or breathing holes need to be made. |
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The edge is irregular and untidy. Let's clean it up by rubbing the mask on some 100 grit sandpaper. |
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Much better. There are also some pits on the side of the mask, but since we're going to glue stuff on, we won't worry about them. They'll be covered. |
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Let's wrap the edges of the mask in cloth tape to get a nice, classy finish.
To do that, get a rough measurement of the perimeter of the mask. Cut a piece of fabric that long and about 1" wide, and iron it in half widthwise. Packaged bias tape, available at fabric stores, should also work fine.
We've chosen fabric to match the rest of our project. However, if you're going to glue on something transparent or which reveals the background color, such as beads, you may wish to stick with white.
Start by gluing down one side of the fabric tape. White glue will work fine for this. |
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Glue and wrap all around the edge of the mask and let it dry. Next, glue the other side of the tape down, so the edge of the mask is covered in fabric. |
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This is how the mask will look after gluing the fabric tape down.
You have various options at this point. You can either glue various embellishments down on the mask, as with the bead-covered mask which follows, or you can do something a bit different. |
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Here's one treatment of the mask form: seed beads + glue + several evenings of TV watching.
Working with seed beads can be a bit fiddly. However, the pointed end of a bamboo skewer works great for picking up tiny beads and putting them in just the right place. Embellishing glue, such as Aleene's Jewel-It, makes a nice non-stinky alternative to adhesives such as E-6000.
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Perhaps we'd like to try something different, though. How about a lace-covered mask?
White lace will show up more dramatically on a dark background, so we glue lots of small pieces of dark fabric on the mask. A busy fabric pattern is chosen so as to disguise errors. |
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Next, we start trying lace appliqués on the mask. These particular appliqués were bought years ago at the Jessica McClintock fabric outlet for ten or fifteen cents apiece. Perhaps you have something similar that you've been hoarding?
This appliqué looks kind of goofy, like a 1960s stereotype of a little Dutch girl. Not exactly the look we were striving for. |
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Hmmm. That's kind of interesting. Let's set those pieces of lace aside. |
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Wow. Hard call. That's either really great or really awful.
Eh, let's call it awful. Next appliqué! |
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Meh. Kind of flapper-meets-spring-wedding, but it has possibilities. Maybe we could salvage the piece in the middle? |
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Kind of interesting, kind of meh. |
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Hey. That's kind of cool. Okay, let's glue these pieces down. |
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Additional lace is added to the sides of the face. Small pieces are glued on anywhere there's an awkward gap between the appliqués
At this stage, it resembles a Mexican wrestler's mask! |
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The lips are embellished with seed and bugle beads, and pearl beads are glued on the lace appliqués
In retrospect, the daisy on the chin was probably a mistake. It looks like a big wart with pearls growing out of it. C' est la vie. |
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We're going to want to hang this thing on a wall, which means we need a hanger. This is a fairly standard metal picture hanger, available at hardware, craft and art supply stores. |
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Unfortunately, if we glue this thing on the mask as is, it's going to be at an angle to the wall. |
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If we take a pair of pliers and bend the hanger, it will work much better. |
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Voila! Let's glue the hanger on and call it done.
So. What kind of mask are you going to make? |
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