What's the max time I should spend on each child?

I'm sure something like this has been asked before, but I couldn't find anything with a forum search. :/

I have worked two gigs now, both for friends. I am sure I took too long at both parties. The first party was only one full face with the other five being eye-mask designs (princess, butterfly, etc). I did better on the second with two full faces, five eye masks and two small cheek designs. But still, I think it took me over an hour to do 6-8 kids. Part of what has been taking me so long is getting the technique down (I've spent most of my life as a drawing artist rather than a painter), and part of it is awkward clean up between kids.

I'm doing my step daughter's birthday party in a couple weeks. We're sending out invitations to around 40 kids and their parents. These will be a bunch of fidgety 5 year olds that will want to get their faces painted quick so they can play! We are taking her to Disney World before Easter hits, so we will have an egg hunt at her birthday party, too. All in all, I need to speed up. I don't want anyone going home sad because they didn't get to get their face painted.

Any advice on making the face painting go quickly and smoothly? What to incorporate, what to avoid? Can I do full faces, or are they more of a carnival thing and take too long for a birthday party?

Any help I get would be so greatly appreciated. I want to help to make this the best birthday ever for this little girl.

speed comes with practice! No substitue for time spent painting. But....
you can do some things to speed it up.

Use a word list and/ or limit the choices to your fastest faces. That way, you can do a less detailed face if you need to and limit the faces that slow you down. If you use a board, use painted templates instead of pictures for quick lines, children are attracted to them, and are less likely to want you to get every last little detail as they are when there is a photo. When you use a board, take a photo of the board, crop it, print it on a regular piece of paper, laminate it or put it in a plastic notebook paper protector, and keep the copy at your staion so that kids can point at the face they want. This will safe you considerable "um" time and help kids who are too shy to tell you what they want. Look for some faces that avoid the eye, try spiderman, batman, a butterfly and hello kittie all above the eye for speed. Try star blends for spiderman eyes especially! Get more brushes and have an assistant do your clean up so you can concentrate on painting. Put your mirror on a table that is a few steps away from you, out of reach so that the child has to get up to look at themselves.

Hope that helps!

Hmm... If I post this twice, I apologize! I hit send and it disappeared. lol

Thank you so much for your response. That was great advice. I do hope I can find an assistant, that would indeed be so much help. Mayhaps my husband would be so kind. ^_^

If you don't mind my asking, how long did it take you to do the face painting in your avatar? I'm itching to know these things!

Hmmmm....it has been a while since I painted the one in the photo, my daughter will not let me touch her with paint anymore and it probably took me 5 to 7 minutes the first time But, this is one photo I put up to paint, and I can paint it now in about 3 minutes, but I paint it over and over and over agian, and even though it has snowflakes on it, I keep it up year round and it still sells. Tigers used to take me forever, like 8 plus minutes, but now, they too are less than 5 minutes and I can do a scalled down tiger in 3 or less.

Speed will come! It is motor memory. You develop your own style this way too, what comes naturally, what you practice, how you like to paint things. When I try to do something out of my comfort zone, I go slower.

Husbands make great assistants! So do teens and tweens. My husband manages my line offten, which is a big help. If you have someone to guide kids, put them in the chair, tell you what they want, take the child out of the chair, it all moves so much faster. Dumping your water, cleaning and sanitizing brushes, etc, that all lets you concentrate on painting. A quick system for washing brushes when you are alone is to rinse, use ivory soap, rinse, rinse, dunk in 70% alcohol, put aside to dry. The brush is ready to be used again in about 5 to 10 minutes. You have to have enough brushes to do that, but it can go quickly. If you are not double dipping and use a spray bottle to put the water into your paints, you don't have to worry too much about anything but keeping the brushes clean. It all gets easier. I am a slob when I paint, everything gets all topsy turvy, but clean and sanitized. You will find a system that works, there is no one right way, as long as you keep it clean (neat is another issue!)

So it CAN be done in around 3 minutes with some practice - that is great to know! I love those beautiful intricatge designs, and there's these really really pretty ones done by LisaJoyYoung on Youtube that I really, really want to do (like the pegasus, holy wow!).

Ha, I can see my stepdaughter being the same way. I hope to RARELY ever practice on her unless it's a special occasion so she won't get sick of it. So, I'm hoping to get a practice head - I haven't looked them up to see how much they cost, I hope it's not too bad.

So, should I have like three brushes for each size to allow for cleaning rotation? Or more? And, for the process of rinse-soap-rinse-rinse-alcohol, do you use 5 different containers? It would be ideal if I could sit next to running water but I'm not sure whether I can.

I have three containers (the tub can be purchased at any art store, it has three sections, in the bottom of one, I have a very soft surgical brush glued down) Look up a thread about the feather soft basin in product reviews, it is awesome, and takes the paint out well. I just have a bar of ivory soap in a travel soap box and a small cup that holds the alcohol, so I do not get the alcohol mixed up with the water. With the soft brush, you really do not have to empty your water all that much, as the one with the brush in in really pulls the paint out quicly, the last water rise stays pretty clean. I carry a gallon jug of water and dump my water in a bucket, where I put my dirty sponges. The ivory in the water starts to work on the sponges as they soak. Bar ivory is awesome to remove stains from your sponges, and drips of paint from your clothes too! After a gig, I use it liberally on my brushes, and will use a thick paste of it to condition the brushes, form a new tip, then let them sit over night and rinse. You can do the same thing with hair gel, but the soap works too. Every so often I will use Masters soap, it is highly conditioning, but a lot more expensive than ivory.

I have a ton of brushes, I order mine in bulk from Sarasota art frame because they have the lowe cornells with the lucite handles, but I also like paradise filberts and flats (I think you can get them from the FPF shop) they have lucite handles too. It is kind of up to you how many brushes to have, and the only place I know of where you have to do all that to keep your brushes clean is in Canada, so you don't have to, but I like to. I think that the lucite is much better. I also like the Snaz red brush, but it has a wooden handle and I have to replace them more often

Some kids never get tired of being painted. Mine hate it now, they are 13, 16 and 20. But they will let me henna them, so I guess I will take that! I do not like practice heads too much, they are good for mapping out a design, but I avoid mine. I am more likely to use my arm or a template printed out and slipped into a plastic sleeve or laminated for practice, but that is just my preference. Flat faces have their drawbacks too.

Yes, you will get faster! A few trial by fire events, and you will be painting with some speed, it will happen. There will be days when you don't, and you feel like you are painting in slow motion, and then really good days when you just bust them out.

I love LJY! Remember though, when you are painting her stuff, you are not going to be teaching and talking, so you will go much faster once you know the design! If you like the intracate designs, check out Marcela on FABA TV, even if you just do a months subscription, it is worth it. Also, there is a face book group devoted to jewled masks, you might like that. https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/433403880012256/
Marcela suggests that you practice tear drops, thin to thick to thin lines, swirls, and all these techniques so that they become second nature on a face, and she has a lot to teach about focal points and how to use them on the face to get nice designs.

January.girl, if you are like the rest of us you will have tons of brushes in a short time! It is so addicting!
Newbies have a Show and Tell thread in this New to Face Painting section, come share your stuff with us there, it is encouraging and fun and everyone is so helpful and kind.

yep, you have to spend some time finding the brushes you like, I would not buy a bunch of one kind until you are sure what you like! I have a grave yard of brushes I tried, but dont like.

Like Martha said, it takes some time to find the brushes that work best for you. I too have a ton of brushes I didn't like. Now that I found what works for me, I tend to stick to that particular brand/type. I buy them at Michael's when I have a coupon for 40% or 50% off.

Speed comes with practice, your muscle memory will start to kick in.
One way to practice if the kids don't want to be painted is to paint on wax paper. It's a trick Mama Clown teaches.

Where in Kentucky are you located?

5-7 minutes for full face designs is perfectly adequate for a professional charging for painting. (10-12 hour).

Under five minutes is something that comes with experience and figuring out how to work faster by cutting out details, condensing (half face/masks/etc.), and designing specifically for speed. And using techniques that allow you to get maximum impact with only a few brushstrokes.

I never really worried about my speed... over time I can now paint up to 20 an hour but that is limiting the selection to those designs I know can be that fast.

I agree. I am fairly new and in the beginning I had my godson come over and I would time myself on full faces and masks. Then I would ( and still) time myself on cheek art. That was helpful for me to get average numbers so I could tell potential clients how many faces I could do.