My Mask Journey

I loved making my mask this year, it was really fun. My favourite part was the painting because I could expressive and the design and colours were up to me. My least favourite part was doing the modeling paste. I didn't like it because it was time consuming and I wanted to start painting as soon as possible.

Halfway through painting my mask, I thought it looked boring, because it was very plain as the purple spots were not on yet and the mask was just yellow, orange and red. I agreed with Ms. Hampton when she said that the spots made it.

In the end I am very happy with my mask. I think the colours are right and in general, it looks amazing! Well at least I think it does. I hope that next year, art will be this fun!

P.S. I tried to upload photos of my mask but the internet wouldn't upload them.

Reason for Colours

I chose to paint my mask red, orange, yellow, blue, purple, green and black with purple spots because it shows the animal's personality. My animal's characteristics are shown through the colour and design of my mask. It's personality is made up of the three animals I used. Bubble-eyed goldfish is fun, strange, happy and bright (colour). This is shown in the bright colours of the mask, such as orange. yellow and green and the huge eyes. The blue ringed octopus is beautiful but deadly and is shown in the darker colours, like purple and blue, and also in the purple spots. The green tree snake is silent, quick and dangerous. This piece of personality is shown in, yet again, the darker colours and the sudden change in colour, going from the tentacles to the body.

The Colour Wheel

The Colour Wheel

A couple of lessons ago, we had to paint a colour wheel in order to learn about primary, secondary and tertiary colours, as well as tints and tones. In the first picture you can see that the wheel goes around in an order, primary, secondary, primary and so on. The second picture shows that the colours turn darker towards the centre of the wheel, and lighter or paler, towards the outside of the wheel. These are called tones and tints; tones being darker and tints being lighter.

Painting the Mask

Painting

Right now I'm halfway through painting the main part of the head of the mask. I have decided to stick with the original colour scheme, which is shown on the right. It's difficult to paint under and above the tentacles, where they meet the actual mask and to make sure that there is no space left without paint, especially between scales.

MOdElLiNg pAsTE

This lesson we used modelling clay to design the texture for our masks. I decided to do fish scales, so I needed to make it look like they overlapped each other. I did this by using my finger to smear the paste on the mask and a broken paddle-pop stick to create the scales. Once I am finished with the moddeling paste, I can begin to paint my mask.

Research Task. 4- The Body and Tentacles of the Blue-Ringed Octopus

For my mask I have decided to use the body and tentacles of the Blue-Ringed Octopus

Research Task. 4- Snake Mouth and Nose

For my mask I have decided to use the nose and mouth of the Green Tree Snake

Research Task. 4- Fish Eyes

For my mask I am going to use the eyes of a bubble-eyed goldfish

Research Task. 1&2- My 3 Mask Animals

The Blue-Ringed Octopus

The Blue-Ringed Octopus has a very unusual skin pattern. The octopus' skin has the same coloured blue and black rings all over its body. Even though the rings are the same colour they are not the same size. The design of the octopus' skin is a lot more creative than the bubble-eyed goldfish.

The Bubble-Eyed Goldfish

The goldfish' scales are very plain. They overlap each other and repeat themselves because the scales are all the same colour and style.

The Green Tree Snake

The Green Tree Snake's scales are different from the bubbled-eye goldfish because the snake needs to slide across the hard, rough ground. The scales on its head are different to the rest of its body, because they do not overlap. The scales are green so that the snake can blend in to its surrounding environment.

Research Task. 1&2- My 3 Chosen Animals

The Leopard Seal

• Named after its spotted coat
• They are kept warm by a layer of blubber just underneath their skin
• They are earless seals
• Not hunted for its skin like the other seals

There is no real pattern to the Leopard Seal's fur. Its furs background colour is a light to dark-grey, with small black spots around its face and larger black spots on its back and tail and it has a white to light-grey coloured tummy.

The African Millipede

• Has a hard exo-skeleton to protect it
• It's brown so it can camouflage into the leaves and dirt it is normally found in

The millipede's scale-like exo-skeleton overlaps and repeats itself. The reason why it overlaps is so the creature can turn and curl itself around. It repeats itself by using the same scales over and over again and joining them so they make a chain sort of.

The Ring-Necked Pheasant

• The male is the one that is colourful
• It is the state bird of South Dakota
• They are hunted for fun anf food

The male Ring-Necked Pheasant has many different coloured feathers with the back feathers being the most impressive. They do not repeat themselves but the feathers do overlap each other.

The Octosnish's Facebook

Favourite Food: Snails, spiders and cheesecake

Favourite Colour: Perriwinkle

Hobbies: Swimming, dressing-up, baking cakes, eating spiders, polishing her eyes and brushing her teeth.

Enjoys... Long strolls along the beach

Interesting Facts:

• She can paint her nails, (even though she doesn't have any)
• She has a third eye under her skin at the top of her head
• She can touch here nose with her tentacles

The Tentacles

I spent some time wondering what I could do to make the tentacles, but then I thought that I could use some polystryrene tubing and some wire. I pushed the thin wire through the polystyrene tube and then bent I could bend it into whatever shape I wanted. Pretty smart! Some tentacles were curly, others were bent slightly and some were just straight.

My Mask

I have started my paper mache and it looks great. The tentacles were hard to paper mache, because they are so squiggly and it was hard to get my hand around them. My mask isn't hard yet but hopefuly by the next coat of paper mache, it will start to get harder. The tip of the octopus' head isn't smooth, so I will have to put more paper mache over it, to smooth out the little gaps in it and to bring it all to the same level.

What I Have Done on my Mask so Far...

On my mask I have finished the head shape of the blue ringed octopus and have almost completed the eyes of a bubble eyed goldfish. The eyes need to be more round as they are square around the outside and flat on the top. Hopefully next
lesson I will fix the eyes, make the mouth of a green trees snake and start the paper mache.

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