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The texture from the different shades of paint coming in, in this picture. However, I believe there was glue left on the paintbrush causing the paint I was putting on the mask to start clumping and peeling off. This was so frustrating not understanding why, until afterwards.

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Painting was going great at first, almost got all the way painted until I ran out of the color. I wanted to do a lighter shade under a black paint, to give more of a textured look. This was until I completely went a different route that would have been a lot easier if I had the idea to begin with.

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Sanding the spackle day, I feel like this photo is self explanatory. Trying to get a cleaner look so the paint will look nicer, however the next few photos will be a rollercoaster.

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Finally working on the spackle part of this mask, this wasn’t too horrible because it wasn’t hard. Rather just time consuming, I also sanded down the spackle once it was dry.

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Still paper macheing (I think that’s probably how you spell it). The chin is extremely wet, so I let that dry by taking off the newspaper that was covering it. The horns, ears and nostril shapes were coming together great with the mache. This process was extremely long and took so so so many retries.

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So the size is coming along great in this photo, however the face is looking like Mr Stout in the back before his morning coffee. The mache was not drying because of the small spaces I was sticking extremely wet newspaper into to get the shape I need.

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Paper Mache!! This was getting better, not quite exactly a Water Buffalo yet. Getting closer though! This took longer than expected, due to the very impractical shaping of the newspaper in the beginning. This was also very unstable, taking about 5 restarts to really get a decent shape and size Stnout.

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Adding the newspaper and taping to get a larger 3D shape. So as you can tell from this photo, this was a rocky start. I wouldn’t even call this a rough draft. I struggled with figuring out the shape of the Stout Snout, because I couldn’t find any side profile photos. This design was also very impractical.

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Creating the card stock outline of the horns. Spent a little too much time detailing it when it wasn’t going to be shown anyways lol.

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Creating the mold was the easiest part, I got it done fast in about 2 days, was unsure of the creation and addition of the horns. Smooth sailing so far.

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Artist Statement: This piece represents quite a few things in my life however there’s a common theme that I think of and it’s the pain that comes in beautiful people’s lives. The smile behind the frown. I purposely created the frown in front of the smiling face because at times it can seem consuming. Most people can’t tell at face value that I was a foster child for 3 years and am now adopted for 3 years. I had a really different childhood than most. My biological mom had me at 17 with her boyfriend and she had another daughter before me at 15 who she gave up for adoption. I have technically 4 siblings and I only live with 3 of them, and all younger than me. She got married when I was young and became very vulnerable to drugs and abuse. She had drug problems since she was 15 but this marriage began serious problems. When I was born they thought that I wouldn’t come out right because she was high on drugs when she had me. My stepdad was probably one of the most confusing relationships I’ve ever had. He married my mom and abused her and got her addicted to drugs. He began abusing us shortly after. He had gone to jail for ten years and they got married shortly after he got out. I reminded him of my mom and for that he hated me. I would get the worst beatings and I felt so alone, I never told anyone growing up for the fear that I would lose my parents. I had many meetings in school therapist buildings with CPS that I would have to lie in. In sixth grade we ended up getting kicked out of the house my stepdad was staying at, and we were homeless in Oceanside for 6 months. From having 4 kids sleep in the trunk of a 5 seater car to finally moving into what people call a “trap house”. There were multiple families living in this house and lots of children all of whose parents either sold drugs or were doing drugs. Mine were both. My mom refused to leave this relationship because it was the only thing in her life she could control. We stayed at this house for a few months until my parents ended up getting arrested inside the house at 5 am. I was taken in a white van with my siblings and other children in the house to Polinsky Children’s Center. It was terrifying, I had never been away from my parents in my life. The adults there asked me if I had anyone who could take me in. I called the only other person I knew who I could at least ask. The people who first gave my stepdad and is a home. Her name was Anita and I had to explain to her what had happened to us because she hadn’t heard from me for at least a year. She picked me and siblings up and took us into her home. At 50 years old she had 4 children. I’ve been with her ever since. My mom has always been my best friend probably because we are so close in age. She contacts me every now and then to say I love you but nothing consistent. She is homeless in New Mexico and I plan on visiting her when I turn 18. I grew up with my dad listening to this album and around 2 years ago I watched the movie “The Dirt” and it was about Motley Crue. I related to much of what happened in that movie whether it was the people, the environment or the kinds of influences around them. This was my comfort band. I got to see them August 28th of this year. With Mick Mars retiring last week I feel so lucky to have been able to see them. This album shows the real struggles in life with drugs and abuse and not the glorified one that most movies present with rockstars. In my future I hope to be something with guitar and I look up to them a lot for their music.

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This photo was one of the last pictures I took before placing my piece on the base. I carved it to make the piece more hollow however I still was unsure of how to fix this broken piece that kept breaking. So I just trusted my gut and slipped and scored this piece and slip and scored both masks to the base.

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This day I worked on the tiny nose of the smiling face as well as the eyelids of the frowning face. The nose of the smiling face was definitely more difficult because of the shape of the smile was different than the frown.

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This day I was working on the structure of how my masks would be built into the back of the piece as well as I had hallowed out both of the mouths.

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This photo shows the problem with the clay drying out and the reason was the paper mold I had created for each was consuming the water out of the clay and would become extremely moist and damp, so I only used the paper to hold up the slip and score of the bottom half of the smile to the rest of the face. I also had done the details of the eyeball in this including carving the inside, shaping the wall of the eyelid and adding clay to emphasize the shape of the brow. I also began working on the second eyeball. The horns were slipped and scored to the first mask and however not completely detailed they were created into triangles that would later be carved into circular horns. I also began shaping the underneath of the cheekbones.

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This photo doesn't show many additions, however I added this picture because this was an extremely large challenge I faced with this smiling face, and was once that I figured out how to fix by simply slipping and scoring the mask to the wall. This was honestly one of the most frustrating and time consuming problems with my piece.

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Photo 4 I believe was taken on a block day, I did major changes to these masks including the framing of the second smiling mask. The cheekbones on the smiling mask I noticed seemed to be more center of the face and I ended up carving into the skin around the cheeks to make them seem more pushed out of the skin and definitely an attention grabber. This day I also learned how to create the shape of an eyeball by molding the clay into a football shape thanks to Mr. Stout. I did add the eyebrows this day which were just a quick addition, not finalized. The mouth of the smiling face definitely was tricky considering it changed the shape of the face completely different than the previous frowning one. I also added the indents that lead from the nose to the sides of the frown on the frowning face.

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This third photo I started working on the details of the face and continued to do, I realized it would have been easier to attached this first mask to my clay base and then work on the details, such as carving out the mouth. I worked on the curvature of the mouth to the connection to the nose and the shape of the mouth. Looking back I think this was when I began realizing the dimensions of face masks that the eye doesn't see from a 2D picture and the pushed out cheeks, indented eyeballs rather than popping out of the face as well as the nostrils pushing inwards. One thing I'm glad I learned from this day was the way the nose bridge connects to the eyebrows, they are almost connected in a way and frame the eyeballs.

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This third photo I started working on the details of the face and continued to do, I realized it would have been easier to attached this first mask to my clay base and then work on the details, such as carving out the mouth. I worked on the curvature of the mouth to the connection to the nose and the shape of the mouth. Looking back I think this was when I began realizing the dimensions of face masks that the eye doesn't see from a 2D picture and the pushed out cheeks, indented eyeballs rather than popping out of the face as well as the nostrils pushing inwards. One thing I'm glad I learned from this day was the way the nose bridge connects to the eyebrows, they are almost connected in a way and frame the eyeballs.

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This second picture was when I first started shaping the second mask to the devilish horns that the mask has at the top. I didn't shape the first mask's horns because I realized I would eventually slip and score horns onto the mask which I found to be easier. My clay was drying out with the first mask which I was unsure as to why, because I would drench it with water coming into and leaving class. But overall the shape of the mask was coming together pretty quickly. I did end up removing the outline of the mouth in this photo. 

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This second picture was when I first started shaping the second mask to the devilish horns that the mask has at the top. I didn't shape the first mask's horns because I realized I would eventually slip and score horns onto the mask which I found to be easier. My clay was drying out with the first mask which I was unsure as to why, because I would drench it with water coming into and leaving class. But overall the shape of the mask was coming together pretty quickly. I did end up removing the outline of the mouth in this photo. 

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First day, I learned how to mold a mask using a paper mold fit to the circular shape of the mask and how it is supposed to frame a face. I accentuated the frame of the cheekbones on the first face and pushed out the frame of the nose rather than building on it. However, I did outline the shape of the mouth upside down which I found kind of ironic because it still looked like it was frowning. At this point, I didn't have any air holes in my mask and I would eventually carve out the holes in the nose and mouth to allow for airflow in my mask.