Mask Making with Plaster of Paris Face Mask

Supplies List

The primary supply needed for the base of the plaster mask is the Plaster of Paris gauze bandages.

You can purchase plaster impregnated gauze bandages in rolls at www.orthotape.com

    * a volunteer

    * 2" or 3" plaster cloth bandages (1 roll per adult face or 6 strips)

    * bowl of room temp water

    * vaseline any brand

Now to begin making the plaster cast mask!

This project can be cover a period of days and is great for classrooms or summer camps.

Day 1 prepare the plaster mask.
Day 2 do the first layer of decoration on the plaster mask-- smoothing it out or adding contours with other mediums. Day 3 you could paint and put on the final details.  Or you could do it all in one day.

   1. If the person has long hair pull it back with clips

   2. Put a liberal coating of vaseline around the hair line, including eyebrows

   3. To begin with use plaster bandage strips that are about -3" in length. Start by dunking the plaster bandages in a bowl of room temperature water, and squeezing out excess water. I find it easiest to start at the top of the face and work around the perimeter first, overlapping the strips as you go.

   4. Fill in and thicken the face.

   5. When you have a couple of plaster layers, you can build up certain areas of the face. The nose should be reinforced. If you want, the cheeks can be built up. Use smaller strips if necessary.

   6. After about 30-40 minutes the subject will feel the mask pulling away from their face. At this time, the mask can be taken off. Examine it to see if there are any areas that you think are too light.

   7. Put on more plaster gauze if necessary.

   8. It will probably take about 1 day for the plaster casting mask to be completely dry.

   9. Do not fiddle with it while it is drying.

On to Decorating the Plaster Mask!

Now comes the really creative part.

Do you want the mask to be its natural color but protected?

Use a clear acrylic sealer such as Plaid's "Mod Podge"(available in either matte of gloss) or Liquitex's "gloss medium" or "matte medium."

Do you want to paint it, but feel like you want to prime it first to smooth out the texture?

Use gesso first, then paint it with acrylic paints. Use the sealer after for a protective coat if necessary.

Do you want something more than just paint?

Glue feathers, sequins, glitter, buttons, bits of paper, ribbon, magazine pages... to it.

For things like feather and sequins a glue gun will work well. For other things, consider using acrylic paint as your glue.

So you are intrigued by the gauze but you don't want to do a regular mask? Lots of pregnant women like to do a cast of their torsos at different stages. (Our best guess is that for a belly you would need between 2 and 3 packages... depending on how pregnant you are I guess....) Or start with your face, but build it up to look like a bird, a bat, a monster etc...