Chances are, at some point during the day, you see your face. It might be in a mirror, a window reflection or a particularly strange dream, but you pretty much keep track of what your face looks like. Or do you? Sure, you may think you know what you look like, but if you really want to nail it down, try making your face – actually building a self-portrait sculpture, a mask image of your true self that you can put on your wall, give as a gift or just hang around with for company.
TAKE A LOOK
Step up to the mirror and check yourself out. And be kind. This is not about how good looking you think you may or may not be. Just take a good long look at what makes up your face. Start with the basic features: hair, skin and eye color, nose, lips and ears. Obviously, you already know these things, but break them down in your mind anyway. Remember to stay light and keep a sense of humor about yourself. At the same time, don’t go too overboard with cartoony, self-put-down kind of stuff. You’re really trying to capture the best of what makes up you. You want your face sculpture to look something like you, but you also want it to show your spirit and personality. And it will. Just don’t get into any heavy ideas about what you may feel is lacking. You’re just fine. How do you think Mr. Potato Head feels?
GET YOURSELF TOGETHER
Here’s where you get a little deeper into it and find the parts to make your face. Keep your eyes open as you travel through your day to find materials that spark an idea. It could be a rusted part of something that you find by a street curb, a piece of scrap wood or a broken marble. Try to stay away from stuff that’s easy. Stretch your imagination and go for things that wouldn’t normally be considered – instead of yellow yarn for blond hair, think about the shape or length of your hair and find something that says your hair as you see it. You’ll be surprised with how naturally you begin to see things and how they can be used. You’ll start finding all kinds of eyes, ears and noses (hopefully not real ones).
A BASE FOR YOUR FACE
After you’ve gathered up your face, find a base – a piece of wood, plastic, metal or anything else you may have found that is close to the shape and size of your face to put yourself together on. Get a bottle of contact cement (that’s a glue that will pretty much stick on anything you find if you follow the directions). Lay out your features, trying different angles and arrangements. Then figure out a system of which piece gets glued onto the other, where to put the glue and how much. Don’t be in a hurry – you may have to wait until some parts have dried solid before you go on to the next piece. No one likes a messy face. Hmm.
A NEW YOU
When everything is tight and dry and stuck together, you’ll see before you a suprising sight: you! With some thought, time and a good effort to shake up your creative juices, you’ll have a very cool self-portrait sculpture to give as a gift or have for your very own. (If it should happen to start talking to you, you may have done a little too good of a job.)
Adrienne H. and Nastassja N. made these self-portraits for KidNews using everything from bandaids to Froot Loops.We’re not running their photos – the point of this project is to interpret your looks, not exactly duplicate them. (We know they don’t, but wouldn’t it be funny to meet these girls and find out they looked exactly like this?)
When you’re done making your face, send us a photo and we’ll print it!
