Hi, I am completely new to this. Help with a design?

In march I got a job working at a zoo. I believed it was just retail (i.e the gift shop) but I got asked if I was interested in face painting. Being not very artistic outside of a computer screen, I wasn't sure, but took on the challenge. I got given a three hour training course which covered the basics - bases, blending, stroke work and some simple designs to get us started. Three hours really does not cover much more than the very very basics, but it did help me as I have never really been around face painting that much. From there on, I was thrown in at the deep end and unleashed on the public with some more experienced painters.

Needless to say, the first couple of weeks were not all too great but with the help of the other girls who had been there the summer before, I started to get into the flow of things. I actually found that I quite enjoyed it, and now I spend a lot of my time at home trying to develop ideas for faces that aren't that great at the moment. As we are a zoo, we mostly focus on zoo animals but also do a selection of others.

Recently our list got re-laminated and on there was Elephant. Being a zoo that has elephants, I understand. But this seems really difficult to do. At the moment we do a really simple design, but I think it just looks awful - especially on smaller children who perhaps have small faces. Do you have any tips on how to do an elephant much better? Bearing in mind that we sometimes work in time restrictions because of large queues.

The second, and the main thing I wanted to ask about was a request I get off children all the time. Children, boys especially, very often ask me for a monkey. Our zoo has A LOT of monkeys (so many that people complain that there are too many!) and they are definitely the star attraction. But we do not paint a monkey. None of us really know how to paint a monkey on a child without it looking either awful or... inappropriate in a way. I have tried to research it but found no decent faces online for young children. Do any of you paint a simple, cute monkey we could do on our kids here? I am desperate to find one so I can fulfill their requests!

Thanks for any help. Any links to some good resources would be fantastic. Thank you!

Welcome to this amazing world! You'll find tons of ideas if you go to the HOME PAGE and you type "jungle" or "animal" in the SEARCH BOX.

Where do you live?

I live in central England :]

And Pilareta, thanks for the tip. I am new to these forums too obviously so thanks for letting me know. Already found a couple of useful old threads!

this is my elephant and it is generally very well received