Emotional Mask
After looking through numerous songs, I chose the song “Wake me up when September ends” by Green Day because after knowing at the meaning of the lyrics and the reason of Armstrong writing this song, I feel sorry for Armstrong. He reveals his feelings about his father who died in September. Although it might not be the saddest song of all time, the song touched my heart, thus impelling me to build a sad mask. The meaning behind the song made me even sadder as it also alludes to 9/11 attacks in America. I like the song because it also reminds the listeners that everything we go through- all the hardships and pain- are meant to make people emotionally stronger. The emotion of loss of loved ones is explicitly expressed in the mask. I purposely pointed the eyebrows downwards and made the man frown. I drew downcast eyes to express disheartened feelings. In creating the mask, my goal was to deliver the sorrow and depression people feel to the audience. I feel that I reached my goal because the man seems as if tears would start to pour out of his eyes. Even though the process of making the final product was challenging since I had to look through photos to learn how the eyes and eyebrows looked like, my finished project was successful in expressing the emotions. However, it was not successful in terms of maintaining its original shape. The head cracked and there are several fractures on the face. I feel that the creation of the piece helped me develop as an artist because I learned about the face proportions and how to draw eyes, nose and mouth in proportion by measuring the size of the face. As a person, I learned that the shapes of eyes, nose and mouth all determine the emotions of a person and that human emotions are not limited to anger, sadness and happiness.