Senior Thesis Poster

I realize I said in the previous post that I said I would be mostly posting sketches and works in progress but I realized I had never posted this project online. Ah who am I kidding, I will post whatever I feel like.

For this project I tried to mimic older band style flyers/posters. It was a fun project although in the end the style has little to nothing to do with my actual thesis. I will also admit that I don't have enough practice with typography, and this was actually pretty tough. This image is also on my coroflot. I hope the watermark isn't too obnoxious.

Life & art after college

Okay. I am still trying to decide on a layout for this blog. I've also decided this page is best for works in progress rather than finished pieces. I will try to upload more work here in the next few weeks. For now please feel free to look here 
For all those of you who've followed this blog it won't be anything new.
BUT here is a little "behind the scenes" on one of my latest 

projects. Here I will show how I made a sturdy mask from paper mache.

 First I used an existing mask that I borrowed from a friend as a reference. Here you can see the two masks side by side. I used elemers wood glue and water mixture (about half and half). I started the paper mache with strips of news paper, I did several layers to ensure a sturdy frame. You may notice the mask is blue. The reason for this is that I used paper towels on top of the newspaper. I did this because the texture lends itself better to being painted than the newspaper.

I realize this looks like Freddy Krueger but I assure you it's not. After the paper is no longer wet I lightly sand it and cover it with gesso. Once that dries I sand it again and I used a tube of paste that is used for fixing car dents (use well ventilated area!). I do this to fill in the gaps where the paper was crinkled, it also helps to add strength to the structure of the mask (I'm sure there are other ways to go about this, but this worked for me). Meaning all the red spots are the paste filling in small gaps. Once dry I sanded it again, and did another coat of gesso and another layer of the paste.

I coat the mask once more with gesso and sand. This is the last chance to fix any major dents in the texture of the mask.

This is the final mask after it's been painted and covered with a matt gloss clear varnish. I also glued a piece of black elastic that fits the width of my head in the inside. I used gorilla glue for the elastic and surprisingly it never once broke or got loose.

Finally you can see me wearing my full plague doctor costume for Drippy Lip Productions "Massacreade". That's my good friend Lauren Rubin standing next to me, with zombie makeup done by yours truly.