Lunar New Year just happened, and San Francisco again hosted the largest Lunar New Year celebration in the United States! This month, we entered the Year of the Woody Dragon, a creature which symbolizes nobility, luck, health, and strength. Chinatown was overrun by dragons (real and costumed alike), celebrating the holiday.
We here at Maker Studio Kidz wanted to get in on the fun, so we have developed our own special holiday craft, inspired by one of our favorite art books, Let’s Make Art, by Alice Hendy and Karen Davies. This mask will transform you into a dragon, ready to fly through the skies and roar your heart out! Let’s dive in!
Materials:
Masking tape
Construction paper in various colors
Scissors
Ruler
Optional: markers, sharpies, stickers, decals
Instructions:
Brainstorm your mask design! We recommend looking up pictures of Chinese dragons online, and sketching out your design on spare paper.
Cut two pieces of lining paper to the length of about 60 cm.
Fold your lining paper in half and trace out half of your mask. Cut out and unfold. This will ensure that your mask is symmetrical.
Trace your piece onto another sheet of lining paper and cut it out. This will be the back of your mask.
Align your front and back pieces and tape them together around all sides but the bottom. Now you can put your head in! If the mask is slipping off your shoulders, put a piece of tape along each side of the bottom edge to the point where it hits your shoulders, leaving a gap large enough for your head.
Measure 15 cm up from the bottom of the front of your mask and mark out a rectangle about 10cm x 2cm. Cut it out, making sure to cut through only the front layer. Now you have a peep hole to look out of! Reinforce the edges with several pieces of masking tape.
Now comes the fun part! Using your design as reference, start cutting out pieces of construction paper into the facial features that will go on your mask. Have fun layering these and seeing what patterns you can create. These are the basic pieces you should create: eyes, eyebrows, mouth, nose, and eyebrows. You may also want to cut templates out of spare paper before cutting into the construction paper. To ensure that awkward shapes like ears fit perfectly, place your mask on top of your construction paper and trace the ears.
Use a glue stick to attach your pieces onto your mask. Add any other fun pieces like stickers, or accent with markers.
Put on your mask and admire yourself! Happy New Year! Here are some of our kids with their masks at our Lunar New Year camp!
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