Joys and Sorrows: Making Masks

It's creativity time!

Our faces are forever immortalized in plaster, so now it's time to sculpt some shit outta clay!

We collected some photos of our ancestors

And used them for inspiration

Don't lose the eyes! X marks the spot for Mel

And bit by bit, we tacked on features

Our masks ranged from the strikingly realistic to the absurdly stylized. This is Vera, a friend of Floez who built masks with us.

Sometimes sculpting can get frustrating...

Sometimes major surgeries are required...

And sometimes you just have to crush one face and start a new one.

But in the end, you hopefully end up with something wonderful :)

Oh you thought we were done? Think again. Time for Silicone! 

Like with plaster, fill the details first, then cover the whole damn thing. 

Later, the silicone peels off of the clay, which is very unceremoniously discarded...

And the Paper Mache begins.

Are we happy??

no.

why? this:

what's that? ridiculous, time-consuming details. At this point, Jared is probably one hour into a 5 or 6 hour process (the first two layers) that has to be done in one go. GO JARED GO!

After 3 or 4 layers and a lot of patience and frustration, the silicone peels off again, leaving the actual mask! Finally!!

Time to cut out the eyes, nostrils, and mouth, then do some repairs and patching:

Once the whole mask has been more-or-less patched with sealant, it's SANDIN' TIME!

Fiiiiinally, it's time to PAINT!

Then it's time to paint again! more layers! And make a mess!

Finishing touches: elastic strap, hair, facial hair, accessories, etc:

MASKS COMPLETE!!!

Getting Plastered

HOKAY! So, as I mentioned in my last post, we're learning to make masks like the Germans do! And in order to build a mask, we have to have a form to build off of, so we start with our own faces. 

Making a plaster cast of your own face is a pretty complicated process. Here's a little step-by-step. (ok that sounds like it'll be a boring post. But it's fun! keep reading!)

First, get your supplies together. This means a ton of plaster strips (like the ones you would use to make a hard cast for a broken arm)

Then, wrap your hair in plastic.

Sometimes this is done much more efficiently than others. And don't forget the eyebrows!

Then, with the help of a buddy, a bowl of water, and a lot of vaseline, cover your whole face, piece by piece

After three layers and artful nose holes, it's finally time to...let it dry!

This gives plenty of opportunity for your friends to mess with you, since you can't see and are trying to meditate to avoid smiling and thus changing your face shape beneath the plaster. 

Once it's dry, a little face wriggling loosens it so it slips right off

Leaving you a little messy

But the first step is complete.

You're not done though, because this is just a negative mold - it's the inside of the plaster that's the exact shape of your face.

So we mix some liquid plaster

(That's Hajo, our mask-making teacher, btw)

And slowly FILL YO' FACE!

A spoon works well at first, for the details. Then a cup becomes a little more efficient.

A screw it. just dump that crap in there. 

Goodnight, sleepy heavy faces! See you in the morning when you're nice and solid.

Since we want full heads, we used styrofoam guys to make head caps, which we attached to the backs of our faces and filled with more plaster. 

But, of course, while they were drying, we had to make friends with them...

Next, in the words of Natasha Beddingfield, "Peel the skin of youuurrr face. No one else can peeel it forrrr you. Only you can peel the skinnnn"

Ok so maybe those weren't the actual words, but hopefully someone from DoubleTake laughed. I know I did.

 And after a bit of sandpapering, you've got a solid plaster version of YOU! Which you can use for... well... anything, i guess...

Mascting!

That's Mask-Acting, for those of you less experienced at combining words like a boss. See! I'm actually doing something productive in Berlin!

(Side note - I still have more photos to post from other travels before I got to Berlin, but I'm going out of order *GASP* to bring you a hint of the work I'm doing here.)

Anyways! The company I'm training/working with is called Familie Flöz. Two things you need to know about them: 1, they are awesome. 2, they have really cool masks.

LOTS of masks

And we get to play with them!

"wtf?," you may be asking. Let me back up a bit. So I've rejoined my ADA cohort for a summer term working with Familie Flöz in Berlin. We're spending 6 weeks learning their style of mask making and performance and developing a show based on our ancestors. 

We have each chosen one of our ancestors, gathered information about them, and begun developing characters based on them. 

For some, the chosen ancestor is one they know (a parent or grandparent) so they can take what they know of that person and build upon it.

Others, who have chosen someone a little further down their lineage, have the challenge/opportunity to develop character and mannerisms they think their ancestor may have had. 

Right now we're working with masks from previous Flöz shows - ones that we felt had similar energies to our ancestors. 

At the same time, we're building original masks in which we'll eventually perform, which also incorporate their facial features. (but that's another post on it's way!)

For now though, we're putting on these new faces,

Figuring out how to bring them to life,

How the get along with each other,

Or on their own,

And how they move.

I'll post more as we get further into the development process and our own masks start taking shape. For now though, we've got character quirks to find! (Be careful of this one...)