Exploring African Mask Project Ideas

Nov 29, 2025 0

Masks come in many shapes, sizes, and forms, and are used to escape reality and to see life from a new or different perspective. Cultures all over the earth use and have used masks for a variety of purposes. Many tribes and peoples of the African continent live the same way they did hundreds of years ago and have great respect for the land, their families, and their communities. Masks may or may not be a part of every African Tribe, but many images come to our minds when Africa is brought up.

Before making your mask, it will be helpful to learn more about African masks and their cultural significance to the tribal people of Africa. This will give you ideas on designing your own mask.

The Mask unit project is based on personal creativity and the ability to display your ideas in an artistic way. Every student is responsible for the creation of an original mask and writing an informative paragraph that describes the basic theme of your project.

Project Steps for Creating Your Own African Mask

Step 1: Theme Selection

Pick a Theme for your Mask. For example: Tribal Mask Replica, African Animal, General African Theme, or Country Flag. You can honestly pick any “theme” you like, just tie it to Africa.

Step 2: Choosing a Base Material

Pick a Mask Base Material. You can use any base structure! A common household item that is readily available for you is a Milk Jug.

Step 3: Planning and Blueprint

Plan before you Cut and make a basic blueprint for your creation before you start digging in.

Step 4: Gathering Materials

Gather decorations, paint, duct tape, glitter, glue, yarn, etc. See what items you have around the house that could be used to decorate/create your African Mask. The fun/creative part of this art project is to see what items you have already sitting around the house to complete this project. No need head out to Target and pick up stuff! Get Creative!

Step 5: Creation

Create your mask & have a bit of fun with this! As 8th graders, this might be your last “arts & crafts” project for a regular education class ever. BE A KID!! Also enlist Mom/Dad and the family to help out.

Step 6: Informative Paragraph or Haiku

Write a 3 - 5 Sentence Informative Paragraph describing your mask. What is it? Tell a story, maybe why you made it or what does it represent. REMINDER - theme it to some African Subject matter.

Optional Step: If a student would rather create an original Haiku Poem that represents their mask (in place of the 3-5 sentence Info Paragraph), please follow the directions below!

Read also: The Story Behind Cachapas

A haiku is an unrhymed three-line poem and is based on a traditional Japanese poetic form. Though there are different ways to write haiku, the traditional pattern in English is to write the first and last lines with five syllables each, and the middle line with seven syllables. In other words, the pattern of syllables looks like this:

Line 1: 5 syllables
Line 2: 7 syllables
Line 3: 5 syllables

An example of a haiku would be:

Tired cat sleeps all night.
He needs lots of rest for a
Long day of napping.

Step 7: Artistic Display

ALL Mask Write-Ups/Haikus must be artistically displayed on an 8X11 piece of art paper. (not lined notebook paper) This page must be uniquely decorated to reflect the theme of your mask! Mask themes come in my forms...think animals, specific tribal groups, a country, or a movie! (CREATIVITY)

Note: Write Up/Haiku MUST include...Title/Mask Name, the Haiku and Student name displayed neatly on front of paper

Read also: Techniques of African Jewellery

How To Make African Tribe Mask With Cardboard | Cardboard Craft | Easy Craft | Swag Art And Craft |

Materials to Consider

Example materials might include Wood, Plastic, Beads, Wire, Thread, Leaves, Hides/Skin, Hair, Teeth, Fur, Feathers, Shells, Seeds, Bells, Horns, Paint, Bones, Jewels, Metal, Straw, Mud, Sand, Lights, Ribbon, Cloth, Flowers, Wrapping Paper, Old Magazines, Felt, Rope/Yarn. The list is endless and many of these items are hiding around the house!!

Here is a table of potential materials that can be used for the mask project:

Category	Materials
Natural	Wood, Leaves, Hides/Skin, Hair, Teeth, Fur, Feathers, Shells, Seeds, Bones
Craft	Beads, Wire, Thread, Bells, Horns, Jewels, Metal, Straw, Mud, Sand, Lights, Ribbon, Cloth, Flowers, Wrapping Paper, Old Magazines, Felt, Rope/Yarn, Paint
Recycled	Paper plates, Newspaper strips, Milk Jug

Alternative Mask Creation Directions

It all starts with a plastic craft store mask:

Materials:

plastic craft-store mask
plaster strips
gesso
acrylic paints and brushes
bowl of warm water

You can tell your kids that masks have been used in African tribal ceremonies and they represent the spirits of their ancestors. They have many symbolic meanings, and are made of many different types of materials, such as leather, wood, fabric, and metal.

Directions:

Cut your plaster into strips and pieces. We found that if we cut them into strips about 2″ wide, then cut those in half width-wise, this was the size we used most. The long strips seem to just get unwieldy and frustrating for kids to manage. 2″x2″ squares are a good size, too. **Cut more pieces than you think you’ll need!**
One at a time, dip the plaster strips into the water and ring them through your fingers to get rid of the excess water.
Lay them over the mask, overlapping them and covering the whole mask with about two layers. We covered the eyes and mouth and nose holes. As you lay down a new strip, gently rub the edges onto the strip you are overlapping it onto. The more you smooth out the plaster strips with your fingers, the fewer of the little air hole-bumps will remain after it is dry.
If you’d like, manipulate the plaster strips to form ridges over the eyes for stylized, 3-dimensional eyebrows, or square off the tip of the nose- see African mask examples.
Set it aside to dry- (Hint: pop it off of the plastic mask after it’s set up for a little while. In damp weather this will take longer- up to a day or so. We cheated and popped ours into the microwave for a minute at a time until it was dry. If the mask feels cold to the touch, this means it still has moisture in it. It must be fully dry to move on to the next step! If you wish, you can trim the edges of the mask with scissors to even it up.
Paint two coats of gesso over the mask, letting it dry completely in between coats.
Paint a base brown color over the mask, (we used Burnt Umber mixed with the teeniest dab of Parchment color (off-white)), then when it’s completely dry, dry-paint a cream color (We used the Parchment color again, but you can mix white with a tiny dab of the brown) in the middle area of the mask. Dry-painting is my completely made-up term for when you don’t mix the paint with water, and you use a smaller brush to brush on the paint, so it doesn’t sink into the holes of the mask.

Option 2: Paint the whole mask brown; let it dry, then paint geometric designs over it with the white/cream paint.

Drawing a Tribal Mask

Below you’ll find an easy step-by-step tutorial for how to draw a Tribal Mask and a Tribal Mask Coloring Page. The fun part about studying tribal masks is learning just how many different looks there are, spread across many different ages and cultures. Even just a quick google search will show you what I mean.

The one thing the masks all seem to have in common though is that they have simple, exaggerated features made in big and bold ways. Colors too are all chosen to get the most attention, so you can understand why they might be so much fun for kids to draw.

This mask drawing is just one possibility. Its very dramatic features can certainly be filled in with natural colors, or over-the-top bright ones like the example here.