Tibetan Sugar Skull Mask

One of the things this move was supposed to provide me with was the time and space in which to make more art. It's taken me some settling in, but this past Sunday, I finally made use of my art setup.

I made this --->

It's a skull mask inspired by Mexican Dia de los Muertos sugar skulls with a Tibetan Buddhist twist.

I picked up the skull blank a few weeks ago at Michaels' Crafts. It was plain brown, paper mache, in with a huge stack of others just like it.

On Sunday, I gesso'd it on the outside surface with two coats, and let it dry a few hours. Luckily, acrylic gesso dries really quickly. I used Liquitex Acrylic Gesso in plain white. After it had dried fully I sketched the design I wanted onto it.

Just like the traditional Mexican sugar skulls, I picked individual designs for each of the teeth. I've got hearts, music notes, a tree, lots of different flowers, a paint brush, cup of coffee, peace sign and even a lesbian symbol! Mine deviates from the traditional Mexican version however. The dome of the skull has a lotus with Sanskrit symbols for each of the chakras and scrollwork around the central figure.

The jaw bone is decorated with hearts and vines, and the cheeks feature more Sanskrit symbols. In this version, the symbols are an Om and the symbol for Anahata, the heart chakra.

The first thing I did when adding color was to paint the lotus. I know, usually in paintings you do the background first, then add details... and for most of the skull that's exactly what I did. But I started with the lotus. I wanted it in shades of blue, with light and shadow. The lotus is the most realistic part of the skull with, honestly, the most detail in it. I also used Resin Sand to create texture in the skull; dots over the eyebrows and detail on the scrollwork got raised and textured with the sand, as well as the large heart on the chin.

I knew that I wanted my skull to be colorful, with lovely jewel-like tones, muted into their pastel counterparts. I wanted it to look rich and sumptuous, not too dark or scary; it also had to blend smoothly from color to color while maintaining each 'zone' of the skull separate. The dome of the skull is a lovely mintish green created by mixing Hooker's Green Hue and Titanium White in Liquitex Acrylic Medium Gloss. The back and sides of the skull are in blue tones, created using the same paints for the lotus (Cobalt Blue Hue, Ultramarine Blue and Cerulean Blue Hue.)

The jaw is yellow, created by combining Naples Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Light and Titanium White. The central face is the most heavily blended, ranging from orange-pink under the nose, through Cadmium Red Light Hue and T.W all the way to Prism Violet and Magenta over the eyes.

At this point, I set the skull aside for a couple of hours to dry completely. Because it was paper mache, adding layer upon layer of water soluble paints to it made it a bit... soggy. If I had continued to work on it without allowing it to dry completely, I could have malformed it, which would have made me very sad.

Once it was totally dry to the touch and sounded dry and hollow when thumped, I picked it up and continued. Most of the detail work was completed with Sharpie Markers. One day, I'll be able to get myself the 144 color set of the Prismacolor Markers, and then, oh then... no surface will be safe from me! Mwah ha ha.. ahem.

The final details on the skull were added last night around midnight. I highlit the Resin Sand dots over the eyebrows as well as the Sanskrit symbols on the cheeks with a dab of Gold paint. Signed the inside of the skull, dated it, and collapsed triumphant into bed, to dream of brightly colored corpses that glowed from within. (I have strange dreams.)

I did make one change to the final design from my initial sketch: the symbol on the right cheek is no longer the chakra symbol for Anahata. Instead, it's an actual word in Sanskrit. It says 'Tapas', which in it's shortened translation means 'spiritual austerity (while seeking a goal).' Of course, 'tapas' is also a Spanish word, and it refers to yummy food! Since the skull was patterned after a sugar skull (a traditional yummy treat in Mexico around Dia de los Muertos), I think including a dead language pun about food is pretty hilarious.

That may just be my weird sense of humor tho, or possibly the fact that I thought it up near midnight last night. Sleep dep plus art leads to some weird things. Amazing, awesome weird things. :)

I wanted to take this chance to once more thank the person who gave me these paints for my birthday a couple years ago. Without the paints, the skull wouldn't have happened, and without the skull, I think I'd be a lot more sad and a lot less content than I am today. Thank you.