Final outcome
• I wanted to explore a space that accentuated the themes of random and natural growth I was trying to communicate in my masks design, so I chose to take my picture in a natural outside environment. I sprawled to create a sense of spontaneity in the image, and used the tree as a backdrop to highlight the joke of my mask being designed after a mushroom. However, I would improve this final image by perhaps going out further for a better location in somewhere like TempleNewsam or Roundhay Park, where trees and grass and wildlife are in abundance and would have accentuated the feel I aimed to accomplish in this piece. I would also experiment with different lighting at different times of day as I think this is one of the weaker elements of my image and I feel photography isn't my strongest point and is something I'd like to develop my practice and understanding of.

Make a Mask of Yourself - Testing & Development

Testing and development
• As my mask didn't need a top I decided to use a brown paper bag to start constructing it and adjusting it to my head size. Once the bag was coated in white paint I considered how to replicate the red spots that often appear on the heads of mushrooms. I used the straightened out handles for the bag to create appendages similar to antennae designed to wrap around my hair and curl around to hold in place. I attached the red spots to these antennae and achieved the effect. Given more time I would have developed an easier way to get the mask on as I had to squeeze my entire head through it, and would have experimented with different colours and possibly spraying my hair a different colour to coincides it's the overall design and create a more refined effect for the final image outcome.

Make a Mask of Yourself - Initial Ideas

Initial ideas
• My very first ideas were comprised of masks designed to contour the face and accentuate certain parts, rather than cover the whole thing with a new image. My influences for these ideas came from science fiction design styles, such as Star Wars and mad max, but I didn't feel that they properly met the brief of a mask of myself, as they don't really represent an element of myself. I then chose to develop an idea involving my hair, as it is often the first feature people notice and point out and point at and touch and talk about when they meet me, and it can be annoying sometimes. So my ideas became about developing a design that used my hair but covered my face, as people often assume its the core of my personality when really it's just what happens to grow out of my head. Using that idea I developed the mask into a mushroom for comic effect but also to convey the idea of random growth being taken for something special when really mushrooms are just fungi and my hair is just hair.