Hello From Central Florida! Newbie to FP - First Event Eval :)

So, I love this Forum, I have never posted and I'm new to Face Painting as well!
I have been preparing for my first "gig" for the past six weeks or so.
It was work related, I was asked to Face Paint as part of a Safety Saturday.
Yesterday , was the event.....!!! Wow!!!
I knew I was hooked on Face Painting, I watched many vids, scoured this Forum, bought Snazaroo at Michael's, ordered from this Forum many times, but.....being a bit older, I don't have "family faces" to practice on, so this event was going to be my first real "test" painting on real faces!
Well, I loved everything about the experience!!! It was a hot one, but we could've had rain, so weather was good.
Great attendance, the kids were awesome! loved making them smile and sparkle!
I had my 13 year old Grand daughter and her friend assist. My Grand Daughter was a helper in painting, and her friend was logistics , she helped keep track of faces painted, etc.
The event was 10-2, some parents didn't realize this was Free to them and were happy to find out it was....people tried to give me money!, but I was on the clock so I declined.
We figured I around 58 faces were done, I did a "Menu for Today" board, for my own piece of mind, and kept most of the designs to cheek or hand, when the line subsided I did do some larger designs. We had the Girl Scouts descend, so they came as a group, instant line! They were great though, good for rainbow butterflys and flowers!
I have to admit I was nervous to do the first child, I felt a little shakey in the beginning but that soon went away when I got into it. I had a feeling I would like doing this, so I did have biz cards made just in case a parent's asked if I do Parties, they did! I also gave one to the Girl Scout Leader.

But I would love a little feedback from some experienced FP er's.
I tried to keep my brushes loaded with one color only, I found I tended to be juggling brushes alot, many in my hands at one time.
I sanitized my hands after each child and clean my hands off alot,I used many , many wet wipes! Does this would improve with experience????

I had two regular folding, chairs facing each other, so I did a lot of reaching,therefore, my back ,which is so, so, to begin with was unhappy afterwards. I notice people use a director's chair for the client, does the painter stand??? Any tips would help.
I'm all in now !! I was too busy to get one pic on my phone !! I can't believe it ! Some taken by the event organizer.
I know this is long...but now I'm excited to really begin cultivating a clientele and really nailing designs. I want to go to the Conference in May !!! I'm so sorry I wasn't tuned in to this last March when it was in Orlando!! 60 miles away from me.
OK , I vented!!! Thanks so much for having this Forum it is very helpful!

Welcome to The Forum, itty12!
I am addicted to face painting, too!
I suspect that one or three other members feel the same way.
You were painting almost 15 faces per hour. That is a respectable number to start out with. I have painted alongside newbies who were painting 6-10 faces per hour. Speed comes with time, and practice, and confidence.
I stand to paint. I have a bad back, and I cannot sit to paint. That little bend forward in a chair kills my back. I put a cushion in my tall director's chair to push the child closer to me.
There is a game of Face Paint Tag going on in the thread "Tag You Are It". This is to help us flex our painty muscles when we get all those weird requests in the field. There is a place to post and share your work to a kind, warm, non-judgemental audience in "Show and Tell". If you WANT to be critiqued, you must ask for it. Everybody started somewhere, and we all remember feeling new.

Happy Painting!

Thank you for the response Lisa!
Good tip about seating. I'll be on the look out for a Director's Chair !
I think I made up a design, I've watched a lot of videos , so I'm not sure if I saw something similar. I will submit for a critique. I called it" Frozen Butterfly".

welcome itty12, you know i want to say itty bitty, lol. sounds like you prepared well and had a good time!

i, too use "dedicated" brushes for similar colors as much as possible, to reduce rinse time and having the brush too wet.

you can have a few brushes of different sizes (round, flat, filbert) for warm colors, reds, pinks, oranges; a few for blues, greens, purples; a few for darks, etc and wipe off on a paper towel between colors. that way you don't need to hold a fistful.

also one for white lines & details, one for black.

Hiya and welcome! Certainly sounds like you have it in your blood now! There's certainly lots of information to go through on the forums and lots of helpful people. I'm currently waiting for a large (for me) order to come in so I'm REALLY excited for what comes next ^_^

so whadja get, littlemonsters?

jlirie wrote:so whadja get, littlemonsters?

I'll post it in my thread

Funny, we have two Schnoodles and their name's are Itty and Bitty! They are a Mother/Daughter team, we rescued them both and they came with those names.

I'm still trying to get used to posting and finding things on the Forum. I'd like to get critiqued on some hand painting I did this morning. I went to Gallery and it said there is no room.???

yeah, no room in the gallery. you can post a photo within a post, in the "new to face painting" thread, under "show and tell", or under "how'd you do that" for techniques, how to do designs, or "product reviews" to show swatches, how products work, or pros and cons.

to post a photo within a post,
start a new post,
add comment if you want, to introduce the photo(s),
click on the left hand square in the tool bar under the B (bold), that looks like a mini monitor with a floppy disk in front of it,
choose a photo from your computer or cell phone, click "host it", wait and 3 lines of url text will show up,
highlight and copy the middle one,
click somewhere in the post to get rid of the 3 lines of url text,
paste the url you copied into the post,
add comments after, if needed,
repeat the process to add more photos to the same post,
hit send,
the post will refresh and you will see the photo(s) and comments.
you can edit the post afterwards to add or delete photos and comments, too.

Great job on the first gig. I am still slow going but see major improvement from when I first started a few years ago. I am proud of myself and even bought my first set of Loew Cornell brushes today. My first $14.00 brush! lol

Though I had a few smaller/family gigs prior, I had my first big 'random person called for a job' gig a few months ago. It was for my company and I was so nervous. What if I didn't do well? what if the kids hated me? what if it was aweful and I have to face co-workers!?

Well, I had a great time and the kids loved me. There were only about 10 kids the whole day (took place during lunchtime/work hours so it wasn't like the whole company was there) and they just kept coming back. I was surprised that the boys wanted to be painted more than the girls. One wanted a batman face and then came back for spiderman on his arm and then came back for a wolverine on his arm. What was cool about wolverine was I had practiced doing a mask; not any arm/cheek designs. So I had to make it up from memory. Turned out great and the best compliment of the day was one of them said 'Wow! you don't even need to look at your cards!' I have to say, it was the best compliment I have ever gotten.

And of course I learned something too. I got a little scared because after I was done and started packing up, the girl who hired me asked for a receipt. I had no idea what to do. She didn't mention one before. So when I got home, I went right to staples and got myself the small $4.00 receipt pads.

Sorry to hijak your post! lol But I think first 'official' gigs are so cool. Welcome to the boards and I look forward to seeing your designs!

sounds awesome!
Welcome to the forum officially!