Sunday, January 25, 2015

I'm Ready For Mardi Gras!

The January PCAGOE Challenge  is masks. They are not my favorite thing. I don't like to wear them. I'm too claustrophobic for that. Don't really like them on other people as well. They kind of scare me. Never sure what is hidden behind them. I do love a challenge though.
Zentangling has been a new past time for me lately.  I drew my inspiration from that. If you are not familiar with zentangling is it called a yoga for the brain. It is a great creative tool for me. It's doodling with a certain freedom that drawing wouldn't allow. It's very restorative.
This mask was constructed on a homemade mask form made from foil and paper. I started with a very thin veneer of black and white stripes. This is the thinnest I've ever worked with, the thinnest on my pasta machine. I wanted to see how it withstand the handling once it was cured. I also was thinking about the clay I would add on top and didn't want to start too thick. The black and white stripes crackled while I was getting it that thin and from far it looks like newspaper. Adding black and white stripes, triangles, squares and circles to make repetitive patterns on the mask I made shapes that I found pleasing. I then added some mica powders to give it a silvery sheen in some spots.
The next step was a spur of the moment idea and I love the way it turned out. The thinness of the base clay gave me concern. After the curing, I was afraid it couldn't be handled without breaking. And I was concerned about how comfortable it would be to wear the mask. Having clay so close to your face would be uncomfortable for me. So I glued a piece of felt to the back and blanket stitched the felt to the mask, all around the edges. I added a silk ribbon on both sides to tie it up It makes the mask much more comfortable and add strength to the clay.
Voila! We are ready for Mardi Gras. 

4 comments:

  1. The pattern is incredible! I love how you achieved a bold feel with a subtle color palette.

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    1. Thank you Marie! I'm really enjoying the zentangle fun and it is all rather bold using the black and white. I wanted to transfer this to clay which is still a new thing for me but turned out well in this case.

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  2. Cool Line! I didn't notice the stitching on the flickr photo, glad I read the blog post to learn about that cool addition! I also considered adding fabric to some areas of the back of my mask, but ran out of time. I too thought your black and white background resembled newspaper print, when I first saw the image on flickr... and I love that the patterning you added is somewhat asymmetrical. Great job!

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    1. Thank you Beth! I've had a couple of people try it on and the results are good. It is comfortable on the face. And as thin as it is it seems quite sturdy and I'm certain that the fabric has a lot to do with that.

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