Dia de la Abby #31: Sugar Skull Mask

This year, my husband and I are attending a masquerade. I wanted to make him a skull mask to wear, but he opted for face paint instead. However, our daughter wanted one, so I made one for her instead.

This was an interesting piece to make, as it incorporated some skills and techniques that I had never tried. This is made of plaster cloth, paper clay and acrylic paint. All of this is air dry, which requires some patience while it dries, but is nice because you don't have to bake it...though you can to help speed up the drying time. I didn't. This design was inspired by the shape of the goblin ball masks in Labyrinth and sugar skulls. If this was for my husband, I would have left off the sugar skull details. I would have just painted it white and painted on teeth. If you notice, this piece is missing ties or a stick. This is going to be an art mask in our house. Though, I may do some fancy photos of Alex in this mask and her skull dress, it won't have prolonged usage, due to being breakable in the hands of a child. If you would like to learn how to make one, see this handy tutorial on making this one and this one on making other kinds of masks.

Every week in the 4.0 year, I will post my own Dia de la Abby posts as well as a tutorial with instructions on how I made my piece. Hopefully you feel inspired by my posts just as I was by Noah's Skull-A-Day 1.0 daily project. Need more of me than just a weekly dose, follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook.