I came up with the design for my sugar skull by looking online at many different mask designs to use for reference. My mask has bits and pieces of other masks that I saw with my own personal touch. Many things in this mask were painted in the moment, I thought they would look cool so I tried it out and in the end the mask kind of all flows together.
To start, we had to learn about what sugar skulls were and spent time looking them up and practicing drawing them. After that, we learned how to plaster masks and saw a demo. This demo lead right into the making of the masks, the mask I made is of Wynn's face. After the plastered mask is dry, the painting begun. I started by getting all the paint I needed to use and then put on the first coat of paint. I had to let it dry before I put more paint on. The second coat I put on was the white paint, I went back and put details on the mask and also outlined the designs I made in color. This helped the mask pop and brought the mask together. When I added the white paint and designs is when my mask started to look a sugar skull. Even though I was done, I still continued to go back and add more details the following class period to make the white paint looked better and to fix any errors I hadn't caught earlier.I think the different layers of colors and designs really makes the mask pop.A sugar skull, is an artists rendering of a human skull. They are made from hardened sugar, the use of sugar art is something that was introduced to Mexico by Italian missionaries. The abundance of sugar in Mexico, meant that it was both cheap and easy to obtain, which allowed for the sugar art to catch on fast. Sugar skulls have become an important part of observing and celebration of the Mexican holiday (El dia de los Muertos/The Day of the Dead) Sugar skulls tend to incorporate the use of floral patterns and/ or other intricate designs, as well as diamonds.
I came up with the design for my sugar skull from looking at sugar skulls that already existed. I searched google to find several examples before starting to sketch what mine might look like. In the end however, my sugar skull became slightly more random, and less traditional. I included the the exposed teeth and jaw, with some of the outlined features, but almost everything else was football inspired. There is a diamond at the center of the skulls head, but other than that, the sugar skull that I created wasn't as customary as most sugar skulls are.A sugar skull is a Mexican mask that is usually made with hardened sugar and designed for the Day of the Dead, similar to our Halloween, in an almost spooky way. The main design for sugar skulls are skeleton faces. For this piece I began with creating my mask to get an idea on what would be possible on my canvas. Kamilah and Sophie helped me with this step so I give them credit for the finished product. I then researched some usual designs of a sugar skull and a lot of the same designs came up. I decided to put a twist on a classic art and really make it my own. This project was done right around the time of Halloween and I was planning on dressing up as Harley Quinn (the Joker's girlfriend from Batman). Her style is almost Mardi Gras inspired and I put this into consideration when I was drafting my design. I chose to sneak in a heart, as the lips, and a spade, as the nose. Trying to make it look as professional as possible I smoothed down what I could and trimmed the outer rim of the mask. I then based it with a few layers of white Gesso paint. After it dried I sketched, in pencil, an outline of my final design. I chose my colors, red and black, and began to paint it. At one point I decided that I wasn't fully satisfied with the style of the lips therefore I painted over that part with the white Gesso and started again. Even after everything was painted to my liking I touched up, making my lines as neat and crisp as possible. After all was said, done, and dry I carefully glazed the front of the mask. I had to be very precise with this process because of possible smearing and blending. Overall I am extremely pleased with the final result and would only want to change the texture of the mask if I could do it all again, perhaps sand it down.
