Make a Mexican mask for Halloween: "La Llorona"

Here's a version by Nely

This story goes way back before I was born, my uncle told us the story one Christmas day, when I was like 7 years old. He told us that when he and his work friends went to a bar to relax after a hard day at work, he saw the scariest thing in his entire life. All his friends went home before him and he stayed to drink more, it was already passing mid-night and he had to walk home, it was dark and it was a long way.

When he got near to the ravine, he saw a lady in white weeping and crying looking down, standing at the edge of the ravine, so he said "Are you ok? Be careful, you're going to fall" but no words came out of her. My uncle describe her, he said she was wearing a long white dress and she had no feet (actually floating in the air) he could only see her back. After a few seconds my uncle felt really bad and he started backing up, her weeping became louder and louder, then she turned around and my uncle scream, her face was indescribable and she had horse legs (she was part human and part animal).

After that, he never walked alone at mid-night around the ravine, he said that, at night he could hear her weeping soft in the air and he still gets the chills down his spine. People say that when you hear the weeping lady far far away, she is right outside your house or near you, and when you hear her really close and loud is because she is far away.

Newspaper
Grocery bags
Paper from your recycling bin

Water, cornstarch, and somewhere to boil water

Corrugated cardboard

A small piece of fabric to cover the back of the head

Packing tape or duct tape
Masking tape

Glue gun and glue sticks

Yarn (I got mine at the Durham Scrap Exchange - you can get yard at thrift stores, or unravel a sweater if you want some wonderful kinky hair - it would be better than what I have)

A bowl and a pot
A form to make the top of the head on (a bowl, or - I used a bike helmet, it doesn't get hurt in the making)

First, I "worried" some corrugated cardboard by rolling it up so it would make a smooth oval. I measured it around my face and cut it to size and taped it. I added a brace across the bottom so the oval would keep its size.

UPDATE: Somebody pointed out I hadn't defined "worrying" the cardboard. That just means scrunching it and rolling it around until it's soft.

So now it was a tallish cylinder of corrugated cardboard.

Next I slashed down to about an inch from the bottom and folded the tabs over (worrying them first so they would bend roundly) and used packing tape to make a smooth oval.

Because I remembered from last time that it's a pain to dig crumbled newspaper out of a finished giant puppet head, I decided to add the nose BEFORE I started in with paper mache. I crumpled up some newspaper and stuck it to the armature.

Then I wrapped the whole thing in a used plastic bag and added one layer of newspaper paper mache, using cornstarch glue. When that was done, I used more wadded newspaper to create a brow ridge. I like a forehead and eyebrows on a puppet mask, especially a scary one.

I added lips, pushed the cheeks around and padded one of them to try and get them a bit more symmetrical, and added two layers of paper - one layer of used grocery bags and one of old copy paper I can never use because it is just. too. PINK!

When Jane Filer makes big masks, she mounts them to old skateboarder helmets (or rollerblading helmets) that her husband picks up at thrift stores. However, I haven't had any luck finding them.

So I made my own - I "borrowed" a bike helmet, protected it with a used grocery bag, and made several layers of paper mache inside. When it dried, I had a bowl-shape which fit my head perfectly!

So that the form would keep its shape, I traced its perimeter on a piece of cardboard and cut out the flat oval. I filled the bowl of the form with used packing peanuts, and then papermached the oval to the bottom of the bowl. Now I have a rigid form which is more or less the size of my head. I'll be able to form a mounting for the mask around it.

I covered the form (in the previous module) with a used plastic bag, put a few layers of paper mache on it, and dried it in the sun. It fit the top of my head perfectly.

Then I cut a half-moon out of the forehead area and tried it on in the mirror, holding the mask-part against it at right angles. I used a sharpie to show how the two pieces would connect.

Then, as if I were sewing, I cut tabs on the bicycle-helmet-shaped skull piece where it needed to be attached to the face, and I hot-glued the tabs down. (Look carefully and you'll see the tabs right in the middle of this picture, already glued.) Now the two pieces were firmly attached to each other.

The thing is upside down in this picture.

Because the front mask and the bicycle-helmet-shaped skull piece were different shapes, I used crumpled newspaper to shape a forehead that would cover the differences and put paper-mache over it.

The brown you see at the right is the raised eye areas - there are slits below them where the wearer's actual eyes will see out.

After I took this picture, I added one more layer, and I used some old salmon colored copy paer for the last layer so I wouldn't have to paint La Llorona's face. (When I say the paper is old - I've had it since before my daughter was born, and she's getting married next year!)

Glue any old piece of cloth, the color of the hair you're using, to the bottom back of the skull. Then take your hair (which could be yarn of any kind, or strips cut from tshirts, or an unraveled sweater, etc) and wrap it around your hand and elbow. Cut it into doubled-over lengths and start gluing it to the skull with the glue-gun.

Here you see the head upside down, supported on a plastic pitcher, and I burned myself a few times before I figured out a good technique - fan out your little doubled-over hank of hair, put an oval of glue on the skull where the hair is going, and then press the hair down into the glue WHILE HOLDING THE NON-GLUED LOOP in one hand and the rest of the hair in the other. This way you can use tension (you pull the hair tight between your two hands) to press the hair down into the hot glue.

If I were doing it again, I'd paint the skull black (or whatever color your hair is) before I glued on the hair, because the salmon-colored skull is peeking out a few places. I'm going back and glueing a bit more hair onto the bald spots. (Too bad guys can't do that, eh?)

I used acrylic paints, because that's what I have, but you could use tempera or gouache or whatever you happen to have. I think blue eyes are scary so that's what my La Llorona has.

Don't forget to cut slits at the height of your eyes so you can see! My slits are somewhat concealed by the bags under the poor woman's eyes.

You could actually use this whole technique to make a princess mask, or a witch, or whatever!

This lens is part of Chapel Hill Fiddler's Puppets & Masks CollectionPunch and Judy • How to Make your Own Punch & Judy Dolls • Casting a plaster mold to make a paper mache head • Punch & Judy show: the other characters • Bread and Puppet Circus • How to Make a Handmade Parade • Adult Puppet Theater • Make a La Llorona paper mache mask • Scary Masks from Afar • How to make a giant puppet and an El Tigre head • The giant head masks of Jane Filer • Make a space alien head from papier mache • Creep masks for Halloween inspiration • See all the puppet lenses at once • The scary recycled puppets of artist Michel Nedjar