Eyeball Considered

(Sometimes I think what I like about blogging is coming up with titles. lol.)

Here's a mask I've been messing around with, probably not finished...

The mask is out of paper mache, smoothed with acrylic modeling paste. The eye is from another mask that never worked. Its painted in oil on a gessoed area of the paper mache. I cut it out of the old mask... and it is currently looking for a home in the new.

I love making masks, but have never figured out how to make them financially viable! The amount of time it takes to smooth out these surfaces is ridiculous. I'd have to be a well know artist with a 'tude to charge enough for them. The obvious is, the materials don't suit the intended effect. But. For some reason I keep returning to it. So, I still do these sometimes, more as a psychological hiccup.

Trash and What You End Up Doing

This mask, of sorts... is probably not finished. I used to make masks... of sorts... and hang them on the wall for respite and reflection and perspective then rework. Now, why I am making a paper mache mask at this moment I only realized the other day. It started with pulling out some stuff I hadn't even looked at in a while and thinking hmmmm. And fixing up an old piece for hanging... drawing a troll... and then came the mask. It took 4 or 5 days of such messing around before I realized... its 'cause I have another jewelry model making job (working for someone else, part time.) This is exactly what I did last time I worked as a jewelry model maker. I did other stuff. I'd come home and just could not sit at the bench. Well. The "vacation" is over tomorrow!

Along the sides of the mask you see those small plastic things? A few years ago I used to go landscape painting in a cemetery nearby. I'm not a very good painter... but landscape painting is a way of going for a walk and looking around really really well. Its nice and fun. This cemetery is beside a river and there is where I collected a bunch of those little bitty plastic things. Some plant up river was dumping, or had dumped, all this trash in the river. In a way the small bits of color looked pretty among the shore line's residue... If you didn't think about the environment, that is. I figured some day I'd find a use for them.

UPDATE! what can I say. The saga goes on... though I'm promising myself no more messing around for a while!