The completed product - a collage.

I have now completed my collage and I am attaching pictures of the finished work. I have used various materials during its creation. It was mainly paper and rubber glued to the sheet of paper, although I have also used guitar strings, which I have attached to the paper with a strong glue. This was perhaps the most challenging part of the creation process, since the strings were not particularly cooperative and I needed to hold them in place in order for the glue to stiffen.

What is assemblage?

Assamblage is a method of creating art which involves a significantly different approach comparing it with the means normally used in graphic art. Although standard methods of drawing are often used in assamblage: oil paint or a pencil, the technique always employs putting together other objects in order to create a two or three-dimensional work - it is a type of three-dimensional collage. These objects are usually not made by the specific artist, but instead often mass-produced, household items or natural products. These are used in order to form a composition. Assamblage is a very open form of art - it does not have any definite rules that every artist would have to adhere to, it allows practically uninhibited freedom for the artist. An assemblage can consist of one object constructed from a number of others, several objects placed in a certain order or it can be a work created with a number of other techniques together with the use of objects.

One of the most prominent artists creating in assamblage were André Breton (considered the forefather of surrealism), Hans Bellmer and Arman.


In Poland, the introductor of assemblage was Władysław Hasior. His works were contemporary, with references to the abstract and surrealist movements. This is an example of one of his installations, entitled Ogniste Ptaki (The Fire Birds):

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Ogniste_ptaki.jpg

Evaluation of the project

Having already completed the final piece of work for my Visual Arts project, I will now try to provide a complex evaluation of the workflow during its creation. The first was the investigation phase, which enabled us to find out what a mask is and how the different types of masks throughout various cultures have been developed. All of the prepared presentations were certainly very coherent and featured many interesting facts, which gave me a great deal of inspiration on how my mask could look. The presentations were divided into European, African and Asian cultural regions, each presenting the characteristic features of the regions' maskmaking process. Next, we have prepared our first design of a mask, a sketch based on the Kashubian motives and culture. It was a phase that would tell us how to use an inspiration later on during the project. In my opinion it was a very valuable lesson, since we have had our first attempt at designing a mask, which would help us during the real design phase. Then, we have made a try at using glue in order to make the basis of the mask, a condensed mass of paper on a normal sheet of paper. This would show us how to do it before we would create the mask on a real baloon. It was indeed a very good idea to do this beforehand, so that the final quality of our projects would be improved. Now we were ready to begin the project properly, so we have commenced that by producing three designs of the masks we were to make, inspired by various cultures. It was also an extremely important phase, since it enabled us to narrow down the single design that would serve as the  motif for the mask and start doing the project itself with a clear idea of what we were going to do.

 In the creation phase, we glued many layers of paper to a blown baloon, in order to obtain a sturdy form that would serve as a backbone of the mask and then detached the ready form from the baloon. Now, I was able to decorate the mask in my chosen way. I have decorated it using African motives and with the use of pastel crayons, in order to obtain the scratchy image that African works are often characterised by.

In my opinion, the whole project was remarkably interesting and original. It did not require any special manual skills in order to achieve the results that one wanted to produce. I have certainly developed much during the creation of this project, mainly because of the knowledge of basic mask types and ways of creating them that I have gained.

The finished project

I have finished my project and these are the photos taken of my complete mask. I have decided to use pastels on my mask instead of the recommended brush paint. There were a number of reasons for this choice. Firstly, it is more in the African style, the mask looks quite scrappy and has very vibrant, bright coulouring. Secondly, it would be hard for me to use so many colors in paint - they would easily mix together on the mask.

Design concepts

I have created three design concepts for the final version of my project. Two of the masks are inspired by the African tribal culture and one is an attempt at the Greek style of maskmaking for theatrical purposes (expressing fear).

A mask inspired by the African culture

Another project inspired by the African culture

A mask inspired by the Greek culture

Inspirations for the project

I have decided that I find African masks the most inspiring and that is where I will concentrate my design attempts. However, I am also quite fond of the masks used in the Greek theatre ,which are more detailed and therefore a lot harder to recreate. Nevertheless, I will try to create one design inspired by this specific style of maskmaking. Below I have provided a few examples of the inspirations that are going to influence my final project:

An African tribal mask with heavy ornaments.

Also an African tribal mask with intense colours.

An ancient theatre mask, expressing a certain emotion.

Kashubian mask project

This is my first project of a mask, an exercise before the actual process of creating different designs to use in the final project. The mask is obviously (to any Polish reader) inspired by Kashubian motives. The colour choice is very simple, the three basic colours are dominating and also worth mentioning are the characteristic spiral floral motives on the mask. It is an exercise that has taught me how to use inspiration in a creative project.