Can I use your kit to paint my kid?????

I must say I always get a lot of questions about my kit as well.... And while I'm painting, I'm not able to hold a conversation, because I'm focussed, so if people start asking questions about my brands of paint and brushes while I'm painting, I might be kind of 'short' in answering as well, even though I don't mind sharing info... Just don't try to talk to me while I'm painting :p

Dear Tineke:
When people want to discuss my paint....I hand them my business card and invite them to contact me to ask any questions they want to know about.

xoxo

Yes and for the mom's who "discuss" how easy it looks I throw over my shoulder while continuing to paint..."Yeah, and Fred Astaire made dancing look easy".

If you velcro your paints down you,ll end up with embarrassed barn dwellers...they always try a covert-peek while your focus is elsewhere...
but when the paint mysteriously won't lift, it baffles them.

Oh, and Momma, I'd love to let you carefully mix paints into mud & scrub my brush ferrules on my favorite brushes--but my insurance doesn't cover you...

Love the $20 idea...that's for cheek art, right?

"Yeah, and Fred Astaire made dancing look easy".

I am SOOO gonna use this comment!

When they ask what kind I use, I say "I purchase high-end, professional paints, because I don't want your child to break out from some low quality paint" then I hold up a prisma cake from paradise & say "This one cake costs $16" They usually shut up & say "Oh, you really are a professional." Then I don't hear anymore talk of how they bought some dollar store paint for their kid's party.

anniel wrote:"Yeah, and Fred Astaire made dancing look easy".

Yes....
and Ginger Rogers did everything Fred did....
in high heels and backwards.

As soon as any one approaches my kit, I stop painting , turn around and say" can I help you?" and a " when I am working I prefer people to stand behind the green line, that way I do not trip over anyone" I smile sweetly when i say it, and I wait until they move away from my things. I try my best to avoid answering questions when I am working. the person in my chair is who gets my attention

Luvs to paint wrote:Would love to say when they ask for those kind "Yes, I can paint that, but better ask mom first because it's my most expensive design at $$$ and takes one hour to paint."    better yet, make a sign saying "SPECIAL REQUESTS ARE $20" .... they'll stick to your menu then, lol.  

Does ANYONE actually do this = where special requests are a different amount than your normal stuff? Would be interested in knowing...

I wanna see all these interesting designs - and I know L!zzie could paint them!

TinafromNY wrote:I think other face painters don't want to give the trade secrets that allow someone else to become competition in their area.  You can't blame them.  But he shouldn't have said yes then!

I had a mom at one of my last events, state how she could paint alot better than I could..but just wanted to know where to get the face paint from. I told her she can get good face paints at walmart (okay, i think we all know this stuff from there ain't quality, lol), and secondly, i kind of embellished it a little, that the paints i use, can cost up to $200 or more...I wish I could've gotten a picture of her eyes popping out...lmao!

She started drawing a design that she wanted me to paint on her kids' face...honestly, it looked like a stick figurine attempting to throw a rock! haha

Always interesting to hear parents' reactions to a face painter, and how they can do better...only to watch them draw stick figures! lol

twobeesdesigns wrote:Always interesting to hear parents' reactions to a face painter, and how they can do better...only to watch them draw stick figures! lol

Y'know, the ebil part of me realllly wants to get a mini palette of Snaz or something, and keep it in my kit especially for these situations. Then, if ever a parent says they can paint just as well as (or better than) me, I can hand them the little kit and a number 4 round, and tell them to knock themselves out.

Then, of course, I'd watch and giggle as the parent realised it's not nearly as easy as it looks.

Yup, the ebil part of me might just do that.

that's how I started...and I was better......so I'd suggest you not do that if competition is a problem...

Also, it is difficult to imitate paint strokes with pencil...I remember trying to tell someone about how I do spongebob quick, and tried to demo it on paper. looked stick figurish and they laughed at me.
frustrated, I had to pull out my whole palette and get water just to prove a point and shut them up!

Yeah, I think you are always going to get at least one parent spouting ridiculous nonsense like this at every event. Nothing to be done really except laugh it off. I think some of it, at least in our case, is that people cannot afford it and therefore want to run it down. I believe it was Aesop who suggested (in the parable of the Fox and the Grapes) that some people find comfort in pretending that what they cannot get is not worth having. Then again, some people -- including those who aught to know better -- seriously underestimate just how difficult what we do can be.

twobeesdesigns wrote:

Luvs to paint wrote:Would love to say when they ask for those kind "Yes, I can paint that, but better ask mom first because it's my most expensive design at $$$ and takes one hour to paint."    better yet, make a sign saying "SPECIAL REQUESTS ARE $20" .... they'll stick to your menu then, lol.  

Does ANYONE actually do this = where special requests are a different amount than your normal stuff? Would be interested in knowing...

I wanna see all these interesting designs - and I know L!zzie could paint them!

I do. It's on my board that custom requests are $15 and up and that the pricing is at the artist's discretion. Works like a charm when you let the parent go into detail about what they want painted (usually a drastic modification of what you already have on the board) and then hilarity sets in when they back pedal at the sticker price on their brilliant creation! When they say, "but you have an $8 butterfly already on your board", I just explain that the butterfly on my board is MY butterfly and that the butterfly they are requesting (with elements of 2 or 3 other design choices is THEIR butterfly and will take me much longer to paint...that makes it CUSTOM!

Lady Jayde wrote:
I do. It's on my board that custom requests are $15 and up and that the pricing is at the artist's discretion. Works like a charm when you let the parent go into detail about what they want painted (usually a drastic modification of what you already have on the board) and then hilarity sets in when they back pedal at the sticker price on their brilliant creation! When they say, "but you have an $8 butterfly already on your board", I just explain that the butterfly on my board is MY butterfly and that the butterfly they are requesting (with elements of 2 or 3 other design choices is THEIR butterfly and will take me much longer to paint...that makes it CUSTOM!

Our general rule is that we simply do not do anything custom at a real event.

The problem with "custom" stuff is that it seems to inevitably take longer, and because the person telling you what they want generally doesn't have a clue what would actually look good, you often send out someone looking less than ideal. They might THINK that a "batman mask with a snake coiling through the eye sockets breathing rainbow smoke rings" would look cool, but in practice it usually just looks a bit confused.

I say that, but then last weekend we were at a small Day of the Dead festival. This event is local for us, much smaller than what we normally do, and basically a fun event for us to unwind after a long season. At this event we allowed people to tell us what kind of Sugar Skull they wanted. We did the same thing last year at this event, and it ended up being a lot of fun and a great way to stretch artistic muscles. This year was no exception.

It was also surprisingly profitable for an event of that size. Which was a nice bonus.

friendly advice for those morons.....never say you don't know how to paint something....look her dead in the eye....and slowly tell her that these are the designs that are offered at this event.
You have no pictures to look at but you seem so sweet that I am sure you just fine. Anyway all art is good. don't spend so much time bothering with people like that, they are insecure themselves and want to direct negative to you thinking it will make her look better.

Yesterday some people were admiring my one-stroke butterfly when one of the mothers said it was thanks to my 'special paintbrush', I told them that even with a 'special paintbrush' it wasn't as easy as it looks. They said they know that when it looks easy it often isn't and they'd volunteered for facepainting at their kids schools and were fully appreciative of the skill it takes, and showered me with compliments afterwards...    Often people who have tried it for themselves are more appreciative of how hard it can actually be.
I have to admit though that when my kids were younger there were a few occasions when at a theme park etc they wanted their faces painted and I had to bite my tongue not to ask if I could paint them myself, as a facepainter myself I KNEW I could do a better job of it...

Love these stories and responses! I paint for free at my children's school Christmas fair. It's where I started and I'm now training up a team of mums so I can start to step back and take on paying jobs for the busiest day of the year. Anyway I look round halfway through. The line is massive and there's a mum who isn't on the team busily painting her own kid in the queue. She's using the school kit not mine, and she might have asked someone in the team if it was ok, and I'm up to my eyes in Rudolph and holly so I let it go. I then realise that she is now calling out 'all butterflies csn come to me!' And painting other kids. She's on the PTA so I have to give her the benefit of the doubt and say she thought she was helping out. But by golly she despatched that queue very quickly because the waiting mums were too nice/embarrassed/scared of her to say 'we'll wait for another painter thanks' so they melted away.

But I have a plan!!! I'm doing a couple of training sessions in the new year and asking the PTA chair to implement a policy of no training, no painting. I'm sure I can swing it on hygiene/safety grounds!

I dunno, spongeblob...


sometimes the parents really don't care...

as a mom myself, I can see both sides-I don't think they were all embarrassed or too nice or scared-maybe they just wanted to get on with the day....


but anyways, yeah I think that would be a great idea to bring up at the next PTA!
especially if you push hygiene and safety!