Made by Genevieve Shapiro
Disaster.
a couple years back i was volunteered to be the bunny at the annual egg hunt. they gave me a onesie costume and a little pink plastic nose on an elastic. but i’m 6′ tall and when i tried to put the costume on, it pulled up at the fork, smushed down at the head, and began to make ripping sounds at the neck.
so i volunteered someone else, and told the organizers that they need a footless suit and a separate mascot head. being a Jonni Good fan, i decided i was the person to make that mask/head! it’s probably slander now to say that i used any of your techniques. this is one of those projects that grew and grew and grew like the Blob from Saturn and wound up in a whole different genre.
i started out with a ball of paper bigger than a head. big heads are cute, right? then more paper and masking tape to make bunny features. then i put on a thin layer of paper clay. it worked! sort of. once i took the paper filling out, i had a big light clay helmet. but it was fragile, so i reinforced it with more clay. then i added bunny features. but it began cracking. so i used cloth mache outside, but then it was all lumpy and rough, so i added lots of gesso. when i tried it on, it sloped backwards, exposing my chin, so i added more weight to the muzzle. next time i put it on it was too loose inside and still slipped backwards so i put foam padding inside. it wasn’t looking good, but i thought “paint, that’s the missing step that transforms this into a cute and cuddly wee beastie.” so i painted it.
it looked like Donnie Darko’s little sister. the eyes, they were terrifying. so i added little white glints – that works on My Pretty Pony. and that made it worse. plus it was still slipping backwards, and needed more weight in the front, so i gave up on the bunny – it was summer by then — and decided a unicorn was the ticket. that would be cute and give weight in the front, and with some gold and silver paint would look gorgeous.
it didn’t.
and it didn’t look like a unicorn. it looked like something with a proboscis, so i decided to run with that, and dragon/bugged it up.
this looked ok, now for halloween, but it was so heavy it made the top of the head sore. so i gave up, and passed it on to a theater troupe. (in the photo you can see the wearer hoiking the “bunny” back up….)
the neanderthal mask (also Jonni’s recipe) was so popular it was stolen from a display and only returned a week later after i had a guy visit a guy who knew a guy….
so people – now it’s August: the time to start making masks for Halloween, everyone! get sculpting – even if it doesn’t turn out the way you want, it will serve some purpose somewhere!
I love your story, and, forgive me, I laughed all the way through. What a misadventure with a great ending. Thanks for taking the time to go through that. It says something about your character that you made it through and kept pushing.
awww…..thanks! i didn’t think of it like that. interestingly, right after i finished this, the city eminent domained my house, and i had to move suddently. the movers were so entertained by the masks they took photographs of themselves wearing it. one thing i can say about it = it fits anyone’s head!
Great story! And it’s obvious from the cartoons on your website that there’s no way your mask was ever going to be a cute little bunny rabbit. Thanks for sharing – it’s an inspiration to us all. 🙂
ha. can’t imagine what gave you that idea…. the zombies? the sharks? thanks for hosting our projects. you have a great internet personality. just charming. (in addition to your fabulous teaching style and artwork)