The Prop Builder's Mask-Making Handbook

Customer Reviews:

Sound but slightly dated.......2005-07-14

I purchased this book as a text for a maskmaking class for my theater degree. I'll repeat the instructor's gist, if not her words: This is a great book on the basic technical aspects of maskmaking. However, there are a lot of other materials that are now available if you have the budget that aren't covered in this book. The photos are good but not always clear, and I agree with some other reviewers that there is a definite lack of practical information such as where to buy maskmaking supplies.
Worth a read, particularly if you're into Commedia masks or working in community theater on a small budget.

a good idea.......2003-01-27

I am confused...I look at the star ratings and read the reviews...but they don't even come close to my thoughts. This book was an interesting read. They do show a huge variety of techniques that are used for the stage... but they only give you a small taste of the process...Vacuum forming for example, a wonderful process, but zippo info on whereto/howto/whoto contact to buy or to make one. Read this book to get an overview of some ideas...but know that the technology shown is old and past its prime. I know stagework is seen at a distance..but you will not be impressed with the craftsmanship of the projects. Heads up on some safety issues..they skip right over that. oh my.

Comprehensive and user friendly!.......2000-04-02

This is a great book about making masks. It covers the making of molds, including using alginate for a life-casting. He talks about making masks of different materials -- from hex-a-cel to paper mache to neoprene to leather! There's a really *nice* section on leather masks, and he also talks a little bit about the history of the leather masks and how they were used in Renaissance Italy by the Commedia. This book is filled with plenty of black and white photos illustrating the various steps in each mask-making or mold-making process, and the instructions are very clear. Highly recommended for those with an interest in making their own masks.

The Art of Feltmaking: Basic Techniques for Making Jewelry, Miniatures, Dolls, Buttons, Wearables, Puppets, Masks and Fine Art Pieces (Watson-Guptill Crafts)

Average customer rating:

Easy to learn!
Better if you're curious about felt than if you are looking for something specific...
Great for kids on rainy days
The Art of Feltmaking:Basic Techniques for Making Jewelry, Miniatures, Dolls, Buttons, Wearables, Puppets, Masks and Fine Art Pi
Want to know what's inside?? Here's a few more details...

The Art of Feltmaking: Basic Techniques for Making Jewelry, Miniatures, Dolls, Buttons, Wearables, Puppets, Masks and Fine Art Pieces (Watson-Guptill Crafts)
Anne Vickrey
Manufacturer: Watson-Guptill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Textile Arts | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0823002624

Amazon.com

The essential materials of feltmaking are basic--wool, hot soapy water, a pair of scissors, and your hands--yet the results are anything but simple. This attractive book explains how to get started in the craft, then thoroughly explores making ropes, beads, and flat pieces of felt (the three basic feltmaking techniques). From there, the felt you create can become sculpted figures, flowers, butterflies, masks, vessels, puppets, buttons and other clothing embellishments, various wearables, and even a miniature scene with manipulatable figures. All of the techniques and projects are carefully explained in step-by-step detail and supported by clear color photos. Most of the items have a lovely folk-art quality, with vivid colors and handmade charm.

Customer Reviews:

Easy to learn!.......2007-08-23

This book explains very well how the is the wool felting process! And now I can make my own felt pieces!!!!

Better if you're curious about felt than if you are looking for something specific..........2007-08-12

This is a good book, wonderfully illustrated, with clear directions. It is definitely a good resource for the beginner. However, I was looking to do something specific (make dolls), so only a small portion of the book was pertinent to my task. I should have realized that from the title - it does say that there are lots of different projects to make. The other thing is that this book only covers a single method of felting - called 'wet felting'. There is also a method called 'needle felting', which is not covered in this book at all. I find needle felting easier, less messy, and more 'airy' looking... all of which I liked better for the project I was doing. That said, wet felting is definitely the way to go with kids. It takes a lot of elbow-grease, but is rewarding and fun. This book would be good for someone experimenting with different wet felting projects and those doing projects with kids.

Great for kids on rainy days.......2007-03-18

Using just a few basic techniques, the books show a variety of felt projects. It begins with a history of felt, with lots of information on materials and tools. Projects include felt jewelry, slippers, mittens, hats, balls, dolls, toys, pouches, bowls and masks. Beautifully written and illustrated. 144 pages, soft bound.

The Art of Feltmaking:Basic Techniques for Making Jewelry, Miniatures, Dolls, Buttons, Wearables, Puppets, Masks and Fine Art Pi.......2005-09-19

This is a great book for beginners. Good instructions and great pictures. Lots of fun ideas.

Want to know what's inside?? Here's a few more details..........2002-07-08

Since my earlier review, we have used this book extensively - kids and mom included. All our children turned out some beautiful artwork, and had a great time in the process.

The layout of the book is well done, and the different methods are covered in a logical order. The pictures are so clear they both illustrate and motivate. It is a pleasure to turn the pages and gaze at the photographs and page designs.

Contents include: getting started-materials and tools,making felt ropes,making beads of many shapes and sizes,rope and bead figures, flat pieces of felt, felt balls, small felt projects such as buttons, flowers and butterflies, masks, felt vessels, seamless wearables, finger and hand puppets, making a felt scene with posable figures, patterns, a source directory (US only unfortunately) and an index. Once you master the basic techniques, it is up to your creativity to reign!

The directions are clear and step by step, making it very "do-able" as a family craft activity. I get the feeling the author must be used to teaching this craft to families and children, as she really spells out each step.

Customer Reviews:

Un veramente "grande libro.......2007-03-09

La magnifica veste grafica e l'ecezionale completezza del testo rendono questo libro uno staordinario documento oltrechè un dovuto omaggio alla cultura Inuit.A quando una ristampa?

Average customer rating:

A great inspiration!
Maskmaking by Carole Sevin
Wonderful, book for all ages & skill levels
Hands on approaches to a variety of Maskmaking techniques.

Maskmaking (Crafts)
Carole Sivin
Manufacturer: Sterling
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Sculpture | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Crafts & Hobbies | Arts & Music | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0871921782

Amazon.com

Masks offer an extraordinary opportunity for creative expression; they can completely transform the human face into something evocative, mysterious, terrifying, or humorous. Extensive instructions are given here for masks of plaster, clay, laminated paper, papier-mâché, buckram, wire, and celastic (a plastic-impregnated fabric), plus directions for final embellishments, finishing techniques, and maskmaking with children. Wonderfully diverse and marvelously creative, most of these are unfortunately shown only in black and white, though there is an eight-page color section. And there are ideas for incorporating found objects, hardware store items, and other flotsam for added interest. Theater designers, performance artists, craftspeople, and teachers--as well as dedicated Halloween revelers--will find inspiration aplenty in this useful and attractive book. --Amy Handy

Book Description

From simple variations on brown paper bags to bal masqué designs, plaster and plasticene molds—the whole range!

Customer Reviews:

A great inspiration!.......2003-07-16

I initially bought this book to help me teach maskmaking at a summer camp for children. Instead of sitting on the bookshelf at school, however, this book has been living in my art studio!

Sivin's lovely book describes and illustrates maskmaking techniques that involve plaster, clay, paper, papier-mache, wire, fabric and many other materials. Her instructions are easy to follow, and she suggests a range of materials that are quite available and practical. Furthermore, the illustrations are very inspirational. She has chosen pictures of masks made by children, adults and professional artists. Some of them are funny, some are beautiful, ethereal or cute, and many are downright creepy.

There is also a short history of world masks in the first chapter. Although it is not terribly detailed (and doesn't touch at all on the masks of Australia or Oceania), it gives the reader a little background before jumping into instruction.

In the month that I have owned this book, I have tried a number of Sivin's techniques--and have had uncontrollable urges to be CONSTANTLY making masks.

Maskmaking by Carole Sevin.......1999-12-19

This is by far one of the best books available on the art of maskmaking. It provides inspiration and clear instructions on technique for the beginners, as well as very useful references for the professional maskmaker. This book always accompanies me when I am given courses on the subject of masks.

Wonderful, book for all ages & skill levels.......1999-09-28

This is a wonderful book that can teach anyone how to easily make beautiful masks. It is especially nice for teachers & parents for exploring maskmaking with children of all ages because of sections featuring easily made masks.

The book starts out with a brief history of masks as art. A vast array of techniques are shown using a variety of easily found materials. These may include balloons, clay, plaster, papier-mâché, wire, buckram, & celastic.

Each maskmaking method includes a complete materials list & is demonstrated with b/w photos and easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions. At the back there is a great chapter on creatively fishing the masks & then protecting them.

Example masks in b/w & a small color gallery in the middle are nice bonuses. This is great book for anyone wanting to create unique masks.

Hands on approaches to a variety of Maskmaking techniques........1997-01-03

I consider this one of the better books on Maskmaking techniques. It has easy to follow directions in a variety of modeling methods. Well illustrated, it makes what could have been a dry lifeless book into something that is accessable to all levels of Maskmaking experience

Average customer rating:

A great invitation to craft, fun, and inspiration

Paper Mask Making
Michael Grater
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Sculpture | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0486247120

Book Description

This do-it-yourself guide gives detailed instructions for making paper masks — how to cut, fold, score, model, paint, and decorate them. Make masks of people, clowns, birds, and animals: lion, cat, dog, fox, bear, monkey, more. 93 black-and-white illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

A great invitation to craft, fun, and inspiration.......2000-01-19

I'm a high School teacher.I bought Michael Grater's book because it looked like even I could use it, and because it looked like I could use it for something. Just browsing it, I had to try it because all I needed was a piece of paper to start with and a pair of scissors. I couldn't stop. I brought it into a class in which we were studying Commedia dell arte. Even the more multiple-thumbed than I got started. And now with facsimile Commedia models to work from we're making/creating our own. And the kids LOVE it! I've rarely seen a more user friendly guide lead to such sophisticated porducts. It's brilliant!

Mask Making: Get Started in a New Craft With Easy-To-Follow Projects for Beginners (Start-a-Craft Series)

Average customer rating:

Mask Making: Get Started in a New Craft With Easy-To-Follow Projects for Beginners (Start-a-Craft Series)
Inc. Book Sales , and Gill Dickinson
Manufacturer: Book Sales
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Sculpture | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Home & Garden | Bargain Books | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0785810080

Masks (Doney, Meryl, Crafts from Many Cultures.)

Average customer rating:

Masks (Doney, Meryl, Crafts from Many Cultures.)
Meryl Doney
Manufacturer: Gareth Stevens Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

General | Sculpture | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Puppets (World Crafts)

ASIN: 0836840445

Average customer rating:

Making Masks

Making Masks (Kids Can Do It)

Manufacturer: Kids Can Press, Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Similar Items:

ASIN: 1550749315

Book Description

Masks are a great way for kids to explore, play and have fun. Step-by-step instructions make the thirteen unique masks featured a snap to create and decorate. Whether it's for a Halloween party, a school play or just for dress-up, a little imagination is all it takes for children to conceal their faces -- and reveal someone new in their places! Mask designs include * a jolly jester * a dangerous dinosaur * a lordly lion * a grumpy gargoyle

Customer Reviews:

Making Masks.......2007-08-06

I thought this was a great little book for working with kids on a craft project. The instructions are easy to follow and the pictures are great.

Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan

Average customer rating:

Reactionarism and the Ku Klux Klan

Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan
Nancy K. MacLean
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Revolutionary | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

Discrimination & Racism | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

jp-unknown1 | Specialty Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0195098366

Book Description

On Thanksgiving night, 1915, a small band of hooded men gathered atop Stone Mountain, an imposing granite butte just outside Atlanta. With a flag fluttering in the wind beside them, a Bible open to the twelfth chapter of Romans, and a flaming cross to light the night sky above, William Joseph Simmons and his disciples proclaimed themselves the new Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, named for the infamous secret order in which many of their fathers had served after the Civil War. Unsure of their footing in the New South and longing for the provincial, patriarchal world of the past, the men of the second Klan saw themselves as an army in training for a war between the races. They boasted that they had bonded into "an invisible phalanx...to stand as impregnable as a tower against every encroachment upon the white man's liberty...in the white man's country, under the white man's flag." Behind the Mask of Chivalry brings the "invisible phalanx" into broad daylight, culling from history the names, the life stories, and the driving passions of the anonymous Klansmen beneath the white hoods and robes. Using an unusual and rich cache of internal Klan records from Athens, Georgia, to anchor her observations, author Nancy MacLean combines a fine-grained portrait of a local Klan world with a penetrating analysis of the second Klan's ideas and politics nationwide. No other right-wing movement has ever achieved as much power as the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, and this book shows how and why it did. MacLean reveals that the movement mobilized its millions of American followers largely through campaigns waged over issues that today would be called "family values": Prohibition violation, premarital sex, lewd movies, anxieties about women's changing roles, and worries over waning parental authority. Neither elites nor "poor white trash," most of the Klan rank and file were married, middle-aged, and middle class. Local meetings, or klonklaves, featured readings of the minutes, plans for recruitment campaigns and Klan barbecues, and distribution of educational materials--Christ and Other Klansmen was one popular tome. Nonetheless, as mundane as proceedings often were at the local level, crusades over "morals" always operated in the service of the Klan's larger agenda of virulent racial hatred and middle-class revanchism. The men who deplored sex among young people and sought to restore the power of husbands and fathers were also sworn to reclaim the "white man's country," striving to take the vote from blacks and bar immigrants. Comparing the Klan to the European fascist movements that grew out of the crucible of the first World War, MacLean maintains that the remarkable scope and frenzy of the movement reflected less on members' power within their communities than on the challenges to that power posed by African Americans, Jews, Catholics, immigrants, and white women and youth who did not obey the Klan's canon of appropriate conduct. In vigilante terror, the Klan's night riders acted out their movement's brutal determination to maintain inherited hierarchies of race, class, and gender. Compellingly readable and impeccably researched, The Mask of Chivalry is an unforgettable investigation of a crucial era in American history, and the social conditions, cultural currents, and ordinary men that built this archetypal American reactionary movement.

Customer Reviews:

Reactionarism and the Ku Klux Klan.......2000-12-01

Utilizing the mind frame of Paul Fussell and his contemporaries that the Great War catalyzed the transformation of European and the western world from traditional to modernity. Nancy McLean advances the paradigm that a countermovement to resist the new values and norms such feminism, corporatism, unionism, and globalization. This movement developed under the auspices of the Ku Klux Klan, which contained motifs of populism, emphasis of race, gender, and age (biological) antagonisms over class and national sovereignty. The fervor populism sponsored by the conservative forces in Athens, Georgia was similar in context to the fascist organizations that occurred in Italy and Germany in an attempt to turn back the clock on ethic morals. Yet unlike its German or Italian counterparts failed to firmly take root in politics due to the brevity of the depression and boom. These characteristics manifested themselves into morality crusades to reinforce traditional norms over modern ones, but moreover the patriarchal, social, hierarchy. These inspired the reinforcement of the prohibition of liquor consumption; reconstitute the obedience to one's parents. It caused a heightened proliferation of spying and becoming turncoats on one's neighbors. Along with other fascist organizations held contradictory beliefs suggesting the development of chain stores and national/international companies were exclaimed as instruments of Catholics and Jews to dominate the U.S. economy, and yet were Bolsheviks. To exterminate this external threat from abroad, citizens joined together to boycott these conglomerates and support locally owned shops. The Klan projected powerful images of Black men raping white women in an attempt to outrage their targeted constituents to gain members and consolidate man's power over their subordinates namely women. The other catalyst regarding this movement regarded the economic depression that occurred in 1924 thus sparked a growing animosity towards people's perceived class enemies-Catholics, Jews, and Eastern European immigrants. Which had largely been absent during one of the largest immigration period in 1880. The primary purpose was to insure the independence and propriety of the middle class. Thus attempted to prevent any further declining down the socio-economic status ladder from the upper class and utilize force when necessary when workers movements occurred in threatening their livelihood

Agayuliyararput: Kegginaqut, Kangiit-Ilu = Our Way of Making Prayer: Yup'Ik Masks and the Stories They Tell

Average customer rating:

A Yup-ik discovery...

Agayuliyararput: Kegginaqut, Kangiit-Ilu = Our Way of Making Prayer: Yup'Ik Masks and the Stories They Tell

Manufacturer: University of Washington Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Textile & Costume | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Fashion | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Beauty & Fashion | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0295975091

Customer Reviews:

A Yup-ik discovery..........2000-04-11

I was on the hunt for fascinating tribal stories and I came across this book put together by Marie Meade. Not only did it contain beautiful photography, but the stories that went with the traditional masks were well traslated and I was able to make more sense of the Yup-ik tribes and their ancient traditions. To see the dances in person is one thing that the book may never be able to match, but to read the book and then see the dance lets you read into the stories and become part of them. Great source!

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books