MASKSMask – a full or partial cover for the face which can be made out of any material and may have many embellishments

What will a mask do for you?

• When you look at the faces around you, you will very quickly discover they are amazingly interesting and intricate works of art. They reveal a variety of designs, and are expressive of a wide range of emotions.

• A mask is just a model of a face that one may use to cover one's own face to express the characteristics of another being. What are the reasons one would wear a mask?

Why wear a mask?

• One reason for wearing a mask is to pretend to be someone or something else. The mask can be a kind of language that expresses the emotion of the figure one chooses to create.

Why wear a mask?

• Protection – Knights wore masks to scare their enemies in order to protect themselves attacked again. Most war masks have a hideously fantastic features to instill fear into the enemy.

• Today, masks are widely used as

a form of protection. For example, bicycle and motorcycle riders wear helmets to protect their heads from accidental injury.

Why wear a mask? African Masks

• These huge variety of African tribal masks are often associated with secret societies.

• Many masks are carved of wood and enhanced with other materials.

• These masks most often are worn by dancers with elaborate costumes in important ceremonies of harvest, initiation, funerals, or war.

What kind of roles do masks play?

– The role played by masks has been important and pervasive throughout the cultural history of the world.

– They may represent both natural and supernatural creatures. Masks usually depict either human beings or animals, male or female.

Greek Theater MasksIt is a necessity to exaggerate in theater costumes and masks. This is how the

Greeks achieved the range of emotions in their masks. They created masks emphasizing smile or frown wrinkles, cheeks, eyebrows, etc.

Portrait – Representation of a person, most often of the face; painting drawing or sculpture

Pacific Masks

Ritual – A ceremonial act or a series of such acts

Adornment – the action of enhancing the appearance with beautiful objects

American Masks North Coast, United states, Mexico, & South Coast

Sculpture – is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping hard or plastic material, commonly stone, metal, or wood

Asian Masks

Distortion – to deform something out of its normal shape

Exaggeration – To enlarge or increase to an abnormal degree

Proportion – Size or weight relationship among elements

Japanese Masks

Symmetry - balanced proportions; beauty of form arising from balanced proportions

Sculpture in the round – Three-dimensional design from which all sides are viewed and therefore should be considered when creating

What is the shape of the mask?

– Masks may be any kinds of shapes one may think of, such as round, square, triangular, or star.

– An example of a two-dimensional mask could be as simple as a drawing on a piece of paper with rubber bands attached to hold the mask in place.

– To make it three-dimensional, simply cut and attach some folded pieces of paper, or other materials.

What kind of materials can we use to create a mask?

– Masks have been, and continue to be, constructed from a variety of materials for widely different significant reasons throughout the world.

– The materials used have depended on the geographical location, the time period, and the resources available to the creators.

– Generally, using naturally occurring resources from the environment creates more naturalistic style masks.

The most common materials to make a mask are

• Wood bark• Cloth• Stone• Bark• Clay or mud• Leaves• Ceramics• Corn husks• Feathers • Plaster• Glass• Metal – gold, bronze, copper & steel• Shells – Bamboo, Coconut, etc

MODERN MASKS

Paper Mache – A mixture of flour and water stirred to a creamy consistency into which strips of newspaper may be dipped and then used as a sculpturing material

Relief – raised from the surface

MODERN MASKS

Collage – A design formed by pasting of various materials onto a background to create variety in texture and surface interest, many times a particular theme is pursued

MODERN MASKS

Assemblage – A work of art composed of fragments of objects or 3-dimensional materials originally intended for other purposes

Themed Masks• 3rd - Bad Hair Day (Modern Mask)

• 5th - Bon Appetite – Incorporate a fruit or vegetable into your mask

• 8th - Zombie Zoo (Animal Kingdom) Create your own morphed animal

• 7th – Ferries & Fright (Beauty & the Beast)

• 9th – Masquerade Ball (A night in Venice)