#10 Medusa Mirror

I was looking at hand mirrors in the dollar store, trying to come up with a gothic project. 
I had a few ideas come to mind but this is what I did first.

This would make a perfect gift for young girls and it teaches a good lesson.
 All beauty decays with time..... and it could all go out the window fast one day, if you piss off a Goddess!






Anyway I started with my little dollar tree mirror. 

I Covered it in ridged wrap. It comes in a bag, in the clay section at michael's. Easy to use
 just add water.

Sorry there are no pictures of it covered in the wrap. I took them but must have accidentally deleted them. any way you can cut this stuff up in strips and you just need all the plastic parts covered.




Then after the wrap was dried and started building medusa face with the paperclay.

I love this stuff!!! Its like a clay. You can get it damp to manipulate it.

But it is super light weight and it air dries.

I formed her face kind of crudely from the clay on the back. 

Flared nostril,  scowl,  eyebrows, sharp teeth... ya know scary stuff. 

Kind of a cross between a vampire and a witch actually.

Then I started making and draping snakes. They are pretty easy to make but you can only do a few at a time or else they get all banged up. So I just did a few a day here and there, until I got what I was looking for.

Next with a very wet clay a filled in the seams between all the snakes. The reason is I want it to appear as if it was carved from stone, so it needed to look like one piece.






The paint part is easy, you just need a small detail brush a bigger, bristly brush, and black and white acrylic paints.


After priming I did a base coat of black over the entire thing making sure I got in every little pour and crack.


Next I made a very dark gray from the white and black. I painted over it with a medium loaded brush...not needing to get in every crack the time... letting flecks of the black show through.


Then I made a much lighter gray. After lightly loading the brush tap of the excess paint so you have a dry bush and brush on. avoiding the shadow areas...want them to stay dark.


This photo kind of shows the progression of layers.

lastly I went in with my dark gray and added more detailsshadows, 

This is hard to mess up because even if you mess up just add a darker or lighter color where needed.

Thats about it...... 

See, one side you have your pretty young face then....

Take heed  young maidens!!!!!!