wear a mask of yourself - final

The idea to shoot these in the woods was a spontaneous one, all in keeping with the carefree attitude of this brief. Whilst the characters would look out of place in an urban setting I feel that the result is even more surreal when set in the forest. There is a sense of isolation perhaps. A fantasy hidden world (though on looking back the mysterious creature in the woods trope has been done to death). I tried to make the characters look friendly and inviting- pointing out directions and waving, though the overall effect is a little unnerving- as it would be if you met a giant headed one eyed being!

wear a mask of yourself - prototypes + construction

I began to look into different methods of creating the mask. Paper cut was a bold choice, graphic and with a childlike sense of fun and easiness. I also looked into using a paper bag as the basis of a mask. I carried on the idea of the eye motif and repeated it around, accidentally ending up with something much more scary than planned! I decided to keep the round motif, particularly as it would be easier to generate something on a much larger scale in a short period of time that way.

 







The final design was to be created with gouache. Keeping
with the idea of simplicity I used only one colour- but decided against black as it seemed too harsh and perhaps a little obvious. The gouache created an uneven tone, but I feel that added a sense of character and 'realness' to quite a bizarre piece, particularly in comparison to the paper cut style.

The construction itself presented a few problems. Working at such a large scale meant I needed a material that was strong enough to hold itself up. I used mountboard- anything thinner became too flimsy and would flop.

Being able to wear the mask was the trickiest problem to solve. String, taped to the base, was too weak to hold the quite heavy board. A strip of cardboard designed to fit around my head would also slip and break as my unflat face sat against the flat mask. The end design meant the mask itself didn't have to rest against my face. It was a similar idea to the second design, but instead of it attaching to my head I would attach to it by mouth. It would bend under the pressure but would stay for long enough to take a photograph.

wear a mask of yourself - initial ideas

To begin with I kept my options open. From the beginning I aimed to create something fun and surreal and quite thoughtlessly doodled away. I was aiming for something that didn't take itself too seriously, with a slight focus on something that could be applied to many- something not necessarily specific to me. A mask of anonymity perhaps. Or a character.

From these ideas I selected a few groups of motifs that began to repeat themselves in the imagery (below). I toyed with the idea of a 'full body' mask and what that idea could mean-
a mask to cover the wearer's entire body,
or a tiny body to be worn on the head.
A bizarre and funny idea!

However I settled on a couple of simple round designs, with the 'standout' effect to be in their extreme size. The two designs- a tiny face and one so large that there is only one eye- would hopefully nicely contrast one another.