Extinct Animal Masks!
Posted October 27, 2009 by bec_young in How-To
If you don't have a Halloween costume yet, maybe you should make a mask of an extinct or endangered animal and spread awareness while you party! We had a little mask-making workshop at our house recently using cardboard and paper maché. I made a crescent nailtail wallaby, an animal the size of a rabbit which was last seen Central Australia in the mid-1950's. Mary Tremonte made a passenger pigeon, that infamous bird whose flocks used to cover North American skies before hunters took them out in the late 1800's. A saber-tooth tiger, polar bear, a lizard called a Kawekaweau, and a cute short-tailed bat were also part of the mix. If you want to make a mask, first you'll need a image and some information about the animal you want to make. I found a book called A Gap in Nature: Exploring the World's Extinct Animals which has amazing illustrations by Peter Schouten. We drew the shapes of ears, beaks, and faces on cardboard and cut them out, and then attached them together with staple pliers and duct tape. Then we added a layer of paper maché paper over that. If you want your mask to be extra strong, add another layer of paper maché once the first one is dry, but this time use muslin cut into strips. Once that's dry, then you are ready to paint, and add feathers, fur, and details. Here's some shots of the costumes in process!
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