Back at Dickinson
Upon my return to Dickinson, Professor Sherry Harper-McCombs and I collaborated on an independent study so that I could continue working this technique for some of our college productions. The closest approaching production was a collaborative performance with the Novus Trombone Quartet and the Theatre and Dance department. This performance brought Greek theater together with music, and so the performers were going to wear Greek-inspired masks.
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The mask figures were already made. The Costumes and Props class of spring 2012 had created these forms as a final project, but never got around to actually pulling them in leather. This is where I came in.
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My first assignment was to clean up the figures, and I did so using the technique of first mixing up a small amount of plaster to fill holes and smooth edges, and secondly sanding down the dried figures.
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The mask figures were already made. The Costumes and Props class of spring 2012 had created these forms as a final project, but never got around to actually pulling them in leather. This is where I came in.
◊ ◊ ◊
My first assignment was to clean up the figures, and I did so using the technique of first mixing up a small amount of plaster to fill holes and smooth edges, and secondly sanding down the dried figures.
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The Tragic Mask sculpted by Holly Spalding and Emie Hughes
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The Heroic Mask sculpted by Gwyneth van Son, Jeremy Lupowitz, and Ana Clemente
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The Comedic Mask sculpted by Lauren Brennan and Holly Kelly
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It was strange working with figures that I had not personally sculpted, especially since there were some aspects of the masks that I found difficult to work with from the advice I had been given in Italy. There were a lot of ridges in these new masks, and that posed a lot of trouble later on. The parts of the masks that came down around the mouth were also troublemakers and there was definitely a learning curve to get around.
Pulling the masks in leather was really difficult. They were not as flat figures as I had worked with in Italy, and there was a lot of excess leather all around. The first try is above, and as you can see, there ws a lot of leather to be gathered up top.
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After the first attempt, Sherry made a discovery:
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After the first attempt, Sherry made a discovery:
We cut more than one seam in the mask to make up for the excess leather in these large figures. Most of our figures ended up with three seams in total; one below the nose, and one above each eyebrow. The seams saved a lot of work and were barely noticeable once the masks were painted and at a distance on stage.
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The creation of the leather forms, happened quickly and much like an assembly line. Sherry and myself nailed the leather on to the plaster figures and then passed the work on to students who were unfamiliar with the method. We instructed them on how to rub the masks and left them to it.
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No one really knew how many leather masks we were supposed to make. We knew there would be repeats, since there were only three figures, but we didn't know how many repeats there needed to be. There were seven students in the class that was performing, so we ended up make seven, only to realize after the fact that just four students were performing. The three extra masks became my guinea pigs for color.
◊ ◊ ◊
The creation of the leather forms, happened quickly and much like an assembly line. Sherry and myself nailed the leather on to the plaster figures and then passed the work on to students who were unfamiliar with the method. We instructed them on how to rub the masks and left them to it.
»» ««
No one really knew how many leather masks we were supposed to make. We knew there would be repeats, since there were only three figures, but we didn't know how many repeats there needed to be. There were seven students in the class that was performing, so we ended up make seven, only to realize after the fact that just four students were performing. The three extra masks became my guinea pigs for color.
We used an assortment of acrylic paints to color the mask. The sponge brush was great for covering larger areas, while the paint brushes were helpful for detail work. Experiment on a piece of scrap leather before you color your mask.
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After talk to the director, Karen Lordi-Kirkham, we decided we would try a light color scheme, a medium color scheme, and a darker color scheme.
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After talk to the director, Karen Lordi-Kirkham, we decided we would try a light color scheme, a medium color scheme, and a darker color scheme.
Light
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Medium
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Dark
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I experimented with using shading versus using highlights. The Lightest mask has shading and highlights, the medium has just highlights and the darkest has just shading.
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I showed the three options to Karen, and we decided we would go with a color midway between the medium and dark masks. I did a mix with the two variations of brown tones, and gave the masks highlights and just a bit of shading.
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I showed the three options to Karen, and we decided we would go with a color midway between the medium and dark masks. I did a mix with the two variations of brown tones, and gave the masks highlights and just a bit of shading.
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These are the final masks. We used a soy-wax finishing on them after they were painted, by using a double boiler to soften the wax and using a clean cloth to apply.
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We fit them to the actors faces by applying stick-on foam to the interior in places where the mask needed to be lifted off the face. The eyes that we had cut were very large and so we did not measure the eyes of the actors before hand, and widened the eyes as necessary after the fitting.
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We fit them to the actors faces by applying stick-on foam to the interior in places where the mask needed to be lifted off the face. The eyes that we had cut were very large and so we did not measure the eyes of the actors before hand, and widened the eyes as necessary after the fitting.
Novus Trombone Quartet Performance
The masks went into performance and served their purpose well with a great show!
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Take care while storing the masks, especially if they extend past the nose as a full or three-quarter mask because they can become warped. We had some issues with the warping of these Greek-inspired masks, which would have held their shape better had they been worn for longer or stored on a face-form.
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Take care while storing the masks, especially if they extend past the nose as a full or three-quarter mask because they can become warped. We had some issues with the warping of these Greek-inspired masks, which would have held their shape better had they been worn for longer or stored on a face-form.
