Plaster Portrait Masks

In this project, eighth grade art students were introduced to the artist George Segal, who used dry plaster bandages as a sculpture medium in order to make direct body casts. His work was considered to be part of the Pop movement, but Segal surpassed other Pop artists' focus on wit and sophisticated attachment in favor of displaying the human condition, its solitude and fragility. Segal placed his sculptures in modern, everyday settings and situations and gave them an "eerily feeling of isolation".

 

My eighth graders used the same medium as Segal for this sculpture/painting project. They wet and applied plaster gauze strips in layers over the face of a classmate. Students made sure to overlap strips and to rub over the holes in the gauze to create a strong, seamless mask mold of each other’s faces (see pics of the process here). Acrylic paint was used to decorate the “canvas”, which are not meant to look like the artist, but are designed as a reflection of something about the individual artist; something that is important or special to them or an aspect of their personality.

The orange painted part of this crab mask is dusted with Old Bay so it has a sandy texture and a crabby smell too!