Bottom's Transformation Completed

Ok, I said I'm back and I mean to post much earlier this week, but my schedule didn't like that apparently. So I'll do my best but updates are likely to still be sporadic for the next while.

One of the big things I had to make sure I got finished for the week long event at Raglan was my mask for Bottom's transformation into a donkey during A Midsummer Night's Dream. This actually proceeded well before the event, but I was thrown by events at the end of July which meant while I got things done, posting about them wasn't an option. But here it is now!

Picture taken by Lady Arianhwy Wen

This was a picture taken from our audience, which I was too nervous to interact with as much as I would have liked, though whenever I looked out, people were hamming back to me as much as I was trying to ham to them. Laughs happened in the right places, and unfortunately the light failed a little too much at the end for reading of my script, but I'm told no one noticed the lines I managed to butcher. I didn't quite get over my stage fright at all, but I'm very glad I did it. 

The only changes I made to the mask from the last post were to give it a couple of layers of shellac and add nose and eye outlines. The outliners, more to give a visual aid to the actors and audience, were unpainted straw glued directly onto the frame. The shellac I applied in two layers using a spray bottle to ensure an even application over the reed and the more gauzy sinamay. 

I decided against the mane, it just didn't look as well as I'd hoped while I was designing. That may have been my first and last appearance on the stage, but I certainly wouldn't mind doing more work at the props end of things.

Bottom's Transformation

I've been falling into bad habits again. The habits in question this time being the brain gremlins telling me that I can't post unfinished work, I must post only completed projects, and my hasn't it been a while since I posted, better get something finished quick!, which of course leads to more stress and less progress.

So here's a piece of progress I'm quite pleased with. As I may have mentioned before, in all too soon a time *gulp*, I will be performing as Nick Bottom (the weaver) in a Raglan production of Midsummer Night's Dream. And performing as Bottom requires a donkey mask! So under the wonderfully supportive eye of my beautiful assistant Lynn, I got started.

I wanted to make my mask with at least a nod to period mask manufacture, but as it turns out though, there's very little information on period mask making out there. Apart from rare "Visard" masks, used as sun protection for ladies of fair skin or the more elaborate Commedia dell'Arte still made with the same leather working principles, so I had to make things up as I went, hoping I was nodding in the right direction.

I started out with some reed which I'd originally bought for an experiment with a pair of stays a few years back, and I bound this together with cotton thread - I would have used linen thread but of course it decided to go walkabout on me again.

The mannequin head was just used for pictures, I sized each piece of reed to my own head before I tied it off, which was just as well as my own head proved to be a wee bit bigger. The first band sits around my head, slightly above my ears and the centre front point rests on my forehead. I added a band going side to side to support the first band in place, then a second, over length band going back to front that would also form the muzzle. A couple of rings rounded out the muzzle, and the basic structure was done.


The basic frame complete, I started to reinforce the joins with twists of papier-mâché. I promise for my next project  of this ilk I'll use a more period glue, but on this occasion I was still using diluted PVA or white glue. Time constraints and such.

Ears attached I began to weave additional strips of reed through the basic frame to build up the shape of the muzzle and head, including some additional paper strips across the ears to give them a mostly covered up look.

 

It was at this point, unfortunately, that period went right out the window and I had to resort to the hot glue gun to complete the next stage.  I wanted to fill in the mask in a way that kept it lightweight and wouldn't inhibit my voice projection, so I decided to line the frame with some sinamay, a fabric similar to buckram used in millinery, that I had laying around. At this point, one of the ears took on a strange cant from somewhere, but I dunno, it kind of adds to the character of the mask.

 After leaving the mask to for a day and a half, I painted over the outer surfaces with a burnt sienna poster paint. To paint the sinamay, I wanted down the paint and blew across the surface after brushing to ensure the holes wouldn't clog up.

And here she is so far (yes, the character is male, but the mask insists on being referred to as she). The mask still needs a short mane, and the eyes need to be outlined so the other actors have a focal point to interact with; at the moment I can see out just fine. There's a mini rehearsal tomorrow where I'll get to put it through it's paces and make sure it's up to the task, then it has a couple of coats of shellac in its future to seal it up and help make it a little more robust.