African Mask

I made an African Senufo mask. I did it in school for a ceramics project. I got the inspiration to do that particular mask from my teacher. She gave us certain websites to go on for our research presentation and the Senufo mask was on one of them. I thought it was interesting so I chose it as my template. I learned that it was a mask for the dead and an obstacle I over came was when it broke. I sat it down lightly but not lightly enough and two pieces came off. Then when my teacher fired it, more pieces broke off of it. It took some tome but I managed to put it back together a little.

I made it by rolling out some clay, and cutting the shapes out. Then I slipped and scored them so they would stay on. I placed rolled up paper underneath my mask to make it more concave, then smoothed out the eyes, nose, mouth, and the rest of it. I then carved in the details and waited for it to dry. Once it dried I used sand paper to make it smooth where some rough edges were, and my teacher fired it. Finally I headquartered down paint and organic materials like coffee and straw like material. It was not fired after I painted it, so my piece was complete.