This half term in Art, Year 5 have been focusing on Ancient Greek theatre masks. These masks were used in Ancient Greek theatre to allow actors to play different characters and depict a range of emotions. They often used bright colours and exaggerated or enlarged facial features to ensure the audience could see the masks from the back of the ampitheatre.
In their lessons so far, the children have completed observational drawings of masks, including choosing certain features to draw in detail, then used this knowledge to design some masks showing different emotions. They then chose one emotion to represent with their mask and created a detailed design, making sure to include exaggerated features.
This week, the children began to construct their masks. Starting with a base mask, they layered up paper and art straws to create facial features such as long noses, chubby cheeks, wrinkles, bushy eyebrows and wide mouths. Some children extended the chins on their masks so they can add beards later on, whilst others created sunken eyes by adding higher levels around their eye sockets.
I have used art straws between the eyebrows to create frown lines for my angry face - Sophie
I have added extra layers to the forehead so that the eyes have more shadow around them - Tiggy
The next step is to cover the masks in paper mache before painting them and adding hair.
Keep your eyes peeled after half term for the no doubt fabulous finished pieces!
