RUQAYA ALJUBOORI - NATURALLY DEER

Naturally Deer (2022)
Ruqaya Aljuboori, 15, Waterloo Collegiate Institute
(Plaster and Acrylic)

My inspiration for this mask was from a movie called “I am legend”. It’s supposedly a wandering deer with veins tangled around it but it’s also part of its skin, to show it’s “old” or “ancient”. I learned that my mask isn’t fully the same as I sketched it out though, but it has come out to look better. My mask is supposed to be realistic. I just like trying to make/draw realistic animals. I haven’t added some features on my deer, for religious reasons. While creating my mask, I’ve added a lot of colour, texture, and shape. I’ve added whatever colours I thought would look good. I struggled with creating the shape of the mask, it was troubling and took a little longer than I thought it’d take. I also definitely struggled with priming it. There was an area around the eye that was cracked, so I added plaster of paris thinking it’d patch it somehow, then applied primer on after. Later on I realised that area formed a bubble. I tried to get rid of it but it ONLY made it worse. It formed even tinier bubbles, so I tried to scrape it off to the side but it became ugly. So now I deeply regret that I even decided to put plaster of paris on it. Should’ve left it alone. I fixed it though, I took it home and mixed cornstarch with white glue. I covered the crack with that magical formula, and it thankfully patched the crack. In the end, painting it wasn’t so bad, I had plenty of challenges in the process of creating the mask, but I've learned from all of them.