THE inventor's masquerade mask

Here's a mask that DaVinci himself would sue over copy right laws for.... or perhaps Renaissance Spiderman... No that's stupid. I mean everyone knows a Renaissance Spiderman could never compete with Leonardo DaVinci who, as we all know, is Renaissance Batman.

For this one you need:

• Willow sticks
• String
• Canvas cloth (or otherwise)
• block of wood and nails (optional)
• needle and white thread

The first thing you're going to need to do is learn how to do a clove hitch and bind 2 sticks together, because you'll be stuffed otherwise. Here's a helpful diagram:

 And here's an even more helpful Youtube video by the ever helpful Howcast

As for the binding of two (crosshatch), after doing the clove hitch on one, simply put another over and begin to do an over and under action a couple of times, then tie around tightly and knot of, as this helpful diagram shows:

Clove hitch, over and under, around and around tightly, knot off and cut. Thank you Girl Guiding

Now you know that, you're going to be a wizard with this. Now you need to warp the willow sticks (basically bend to the shape you want it to be). Willow is brilliant for this. find some pieces that aren't too brittle and thin and dunk in water for around twenty minutes or more. The longer you leave it, the more flexible and warpable the willow is going to be. I personally made a rough frame using nails to hold it in place as it dried and stayed curved:

 

However I've also done it  by just gently bending it and holding it in place until it had bent and stayed for long enough. Remember BE GENTLE when doing this. AND patient - a lot of wood is probably going to snap and again you will feel the urge to hurt it and the art teacher whose in perfect bullseye range. Now personally I cut and shaped my mask to be this shape: 

Nananananananana Renaissance man!

But again, it can be personalized and changed etc. This one's supposed to look a bit like a DaVinci glider (nose piece being the glider front, the 'mono-brow' being the tail). Starting with the circular eye pieces (be patient enough and you CAN bend it that far - tie up with clove hitch and cross hatch etc.), I tied on the 'web' frame using the clove hitch and crosshatch knots. Then I attached the two with a triangle piece across the nose. In the end it looked like this:

 

The whole thing will be kind of bendable, but that'll just make it easier to shape it to your face. As for attachments you could use string, but I found it easier to use two sticks on either side to make something almost like a pair of glasses (easy to shorten and lengthen for size), which I attached to the frame on either side of the eyes (using glasses helps for reference).

Finally you just need to cut canvas cloth to sizes and sew on. Being lazy I stopped any fraying with PVA glue, but it's seemed to work so far:

And so you have a mask to fight crime Renaissance style... or you know, just look unique at the next masquerade ball your invited to. The warping and knots are just a useful thing in general too, it can go well beyond masks to help with your own personal Renaissance batman wings: