Mask Making

I looked through the provided links (The Art of the African Mask and  Masks of the World: South American) looking for mask I found particularly interesting and might want to try to imitate. I ended up choosing the following images: 

I chose the above images because the symmetry really stood out to me. I really liked the use of lines, balance, and pattern. I liked how the first one looked almost like it was flowing backwards with the shrinking arrows, bringing an element of movement to it. In the second one, I originally was planning to recreate the checkered images, I really liked the way they contrasted with other shapes around them, but it did not end up being painted on the mask in the end. In the final one, I really liked the squared off swirl look of the lines and tried my best to recreate that short of chopped image look, like the shapes are meant to be connected but have space in between them. 

Taking all of this into account, I ended up sketching out these images at first: 

First sketches

Final sketches 

And after that I painted my mask:

Similarly to the inspiration images, I utilized the elements of symmetry, lines, balance,and pattern. I also utilized color and contrast in that sense as well. I like my final mask well enough, unfortunately painting doesn't allow for as perfect lines as drawing does but I am happy with how the final mask worked out. I think I ended up depicting the elements I wanted to and made it work as best I could.