How to Make a Medusa Face Out of Construction Paper

Carvings of Medusa show snakes for her hair.

When the mortal Gorgon Medusa insulted the Greek goddess Athena, she was cursed with a face so ugly she could turn anyone who looked at her into stone. The face of Medusa is often created for Halloween masks, school projects and works of art, easily identified by her head full of snakes. Creating Medusa's face out of construction paper is fun and easy.

Things You'll Need

• 8-inch paper plate
• Green construction papers
• Scissors
• Crayons
• Ruler
• Red construction paper
• Glue

Instructions

1. Place the paper plate over a piece of green construction paper, and trace a circle. Cut the circle out. This will be the face.

2. Use pencils or black-, brown- or purple-colored crayons to draw the face of Medusa. Give her a toothless mouth, narrow eyes, a broken or long, sharp nose and scars.

3. Measure out 1-inch increments across the width of two sheets of green construction paper. Draw lines along the markings to create nine strips that are 1-inch-by-12-inches long. Cut out the strips, and then cut the corners of one end of each strip to make a semi-circle. It doesn't have to be perfectly round. Draw snake eyes on each rounded end to create a face. This will be Medusa's snake hair.

4. Cut out narrow 1 1/2-inch long strips of red paper, and glue them to the underside of the snake heads so that 1 inch of the red paper, the snake tongues, show.

5. Curl the nonscalloped ends of the snake strips with a pencil. Glue the ends to the edges of the Medusa head so that some curl toward you and some away. Glue half the snakes on the front edge of the face and some on the back so that it looks like her entire head has snakes growing out of it.

References

• Channel 4 Learning: Medusa Mask
• Greek Mythology: Medusa
• Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University: Gorgons of Ancient Greek Myth