Milk Jug Mask

Materials needed:

*Clean milk jug

*Scissors

*Sharipie

*Crafting grass/straw

*Acrylic paint

*Shoe polish

*Masking tape

*Hole puncher

*Various wooden beads

*Paper towels

*Water

*Water cup

*Paint brushes

*Paper plate

This project is great for studying African traditions of mask-making while creating a personal mask from an everyday object.

*For a tutorial on this project, visit Art for Children is Fun*
To start the project, look at a milk jug and decide where a face appears. For me, I chose to use the opening of the jug as the mouth, the handle as the nose, and the bottom portion of the jug as a large forehead. Once I decided where the face was going to be, I took a sharpie and drew the edges of the face and the eyes. I then took scissors and pierced holes to begin cutting the lines I had drawn. I carefully cut the face and eyes from the rest of the jug.

After cutting, I took masking tape and tore it into half inch sized pieces and covered the entire front of the face in a random textured pattern. I made sure to overlap the pieces and wrap the extra around to the back of the face – either through the eyes or around the edges of the face. I then took the hole puncher and punched seventeen holes across the top of the forehead where I wanted hair to be placed.

Once the holes were punched, I then took a paper towel and dipped into the shoe polish and covered the entire face with shoe polish. The polish worked it’s way into the texture of the tape and in between the many peaces, creating a leathery texture. I allowed for the face to dry for about ten minutes. While it was drying, I made sketches of face designs for my mask and gathered the colors of paint that I wanted onto a paper plate and gathered the paintbrushes that I needed.

I begin by painting black eyebrows above the eyes. The shape of the jug gives an expression of concern or worry, so I emphasized that with black eyebrows raised in a concerned manner. I painted a green around the eyes to imply makeup or eye shadow. I then mixed yellow with a bit of purple to tone down the brightness of the color and give it a more neutral and earthy tone to fit the idea of a mask made from the surrounding resources. I painted circles up the nose and to the forehead. The circles grew in size as they continued upward. I also painted circles down the side of the face, down the jaw line and to the mouth and repeated those dots with a row of black dots as well. to finish with the paint, I painted stripes down the spout of the jug to allude to teeth. I allowed the paint to dry before continuing.

I took three pieces of straw/grass and folded them in half. I pushed the folded section through the first hole on top of the head and pulled the remaining ends of the grass through the loop created and pulled it tight against the hole. I then threaded a green bead onto the grass and pushed it up to the scalp. I tied a knot at the end of the bead to hold it in place and to keep it from falling off the grass. I threaded another bead onto the grass and tied a knot again. I repeated this process for every hole, but randomized the order of colors.

I learned so much from this project. I didn’t realize that such a cool mask could be made from such a simple daily object. It was fun to use shoe polish in a new way and create a faux leather look. This is a fun way to look at other cultures and combine them with the objects of our own. Masks have many metaphors and it was fun to explore those and express those metaphors through design and creativity.