African Masks

Posted 2013-07-04 by Jane Street ⇒ follow

African masks were traditionally made for rituals and ceremonies. They are often carved from wood, painted with ochre or other natural colourings and decorated with leather, straw, animal hair, copper, shells or feathers.

Have fun making your own African masks with kids of any age.

Time: 2 hours including drying time (30 minutes craft time)
Age: Any Age
Level: Medium

Materials

Cereal box

Hessian (or other rough material)

PVA glue

Popsicle stick (or a natural stick)

Scissors

Brown paint and brush or roller

Scraps of fabric, cardboard, paper, feathers, buttons, leather etc

Hole punch

Raffia

Earthytoned materials to make our masks

Method

Cut a mask shape out of the cereal box.

Cardboard cereal box mask backings

Glue hessian (or other coarse fabric) onto the mask shape and trim.

Paint the mask with brown paint. We mixed green, orange and black paint together to get brown.

The roller worked well on the coarse fabric and was easy for little hands

Leave to dry then cut out eyes - you could try round holes, rectangles or triangles.

Glue on scraps of fabric, cardboard, papers, feathers etc to decorate your mask. We cut triangles, rectangles and circles. We chose earthy tones (browns, reds, oranges) as well as some metallic scraps.