How do you cut out eyeholes in a papier-mâché mask?

My ancient history class is making Greek Theater Masks. Last week, they covered balloons with papier-mâché . This week, we'll be cutting eye holes and using paper clay to add details, noses, horns, ears, etc.

BUT, I have no idea how to manage to get the kids eyeholes in the right spot. And I'll be doing this in 9 hours. Any help is much appreciated!

Sounds exciting!

My memory is dim on this.  I remember the teachers creating a hole and drawing a line for us to cut with scissors.  But a lot of us had trouble cutting it with the stupid child safety scissors so the teacher ended up doing most of it.  

As for right spot.  I think the teacher went with larger eyes rather than smaller ones to compensate for not knowing the right placement.  

But it was a long time ago and someone stood on and broke my mask by "accident" so I didn't get to finish it.  

Having your mask broken "on accident" sounds terrible! One of my student's masks had the balloon deflate while the paper mache was still drying. I need to remember to make an extra today for him (he's in my Wednesday class, so I still have time). I want the kids to be proud of their masks and happy with their masks.

My husband just suggested using "wooden stick to mark pupil width" for figuring out the eyes horizontal placement. Good idea! But, getting the vertical placement is the hardest bit...especially since some of the kids have masks that go all the way around their heads!

Thankfully, the school scissors aren't too dull, and the paper mache is pretty thin (most kids got only one or two layers of paper on their masks) so it cuts pretty easily.

Nicole said, Having your mask broken "on accident" sounds terrible.

Maybe that mask needed a few more layer of paper. Or maybe the final layer could be cloth.

Maybe this will help:

https://www.instructables.com/Easy-Paper-Mache-Mask/

When I was making Venetian masks, I needed to fit some.
The trick I used was to take a paper towel and fit it over the face and then mark the eyes and nose/cheek lines. Then it could be moved to mask and was soft so would fit over it without problem and make it easy to copy the eye placement as well as fitting the bottom edges.

Once the eye openings were marked, I used razor blades or fresh box cutters to make the cuts. You would need to do that part for the kids of course.

Oh, a template.   That's a great idea.  

Oooh, a paper towel is great, because it's soft, and I'll be able to mark their eyes and mouths right on their heads. Thank you!!!

The paper towel trick worked! What I did was:

(1) Had the kid hold the paper towel on their face while I used a fat-tipped washable marker to mark their eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and ears. The nose and chin weren't really necessary. What was necessary was marking their ears!

(2) Put the mask on their head and use the ears to line up the paper towel template. Then I colored back and forth on the eyes and mouth long enough for the marker to seep through the paper towel to mark the mask. It helped to have another person looking to make sure the mask and template were not crooked!

(3) Used scissors to make slits for the eyes and then had the kids test to see if the eyes were good. Then I let them draw their eyes and use scissors to cut the out.

Our papier-mâché was pretty thin, since most of the kids didn't do many layers. It wasn't too hard to cut out the eyes.

Thank you all so much! You were true lifesavers today!