Tips for having your own facepaint jam....

I have been talking about wanting to have my own face paint jam for a long time. I just don't feel like I have enough info or ideas, or must do and must not do info. Will you all help? Thanks tons for your time...Kerrie

I've never organized one but I have been to a couple so far. The last one I posted about in the event section is having door prizes and small demos...someones going to be selling paints & supplies and I'm going to be offering custom coloring pages. They got the room for free and we all just need to buy a meal.

Other then that everyone just brings their stuff and you paint and have fun and chatter about techniques and ideas and so on. You can probably do a fun quick get-to-know-everyones-name game if you have alot of people attend.

I am trying to the same thing....I have to meet with the owner of a local bowling alley that is always busy. Gonna see if a group of us can meet there and see what happens. Please keep me in the loop of any ideas that may come your way and I will do the same.

Hey Kerrie. Ryan and I have hosted a few in the area over the years, but usually only Paola shows up. We had one where 8 people showed up but it was pretty lame because no one except for me and one other person wanted to paint! I had one of my Wolfe books with me and one person that came to the jam, sat and took PICS of every page!! no kidding! I told her to please stop and that if she liked it so much, then she could purchase it online. geezz....

We can try for another one if you want, I just don't want them to turn into free training sessions(which is what they always seem to turn into...)

We could have one and do that hand painting thing, that looks like a fun activity!

We usually had them at restaurants(Red Robbins in Newport News, Golden Coral in VA Beach, and Friendly's in Norfolk...) where we could have our own private area.

Our clown group had one all last summer on Wednesday nights at a local chuch. It was in a lower income area and the Church provided free food for anyone who was hungry. Lots of children were there. We practiced all summer long on those kids. It was a FANTASTIC opportunity for me to learn and grow....LOVIN that profile pic Ashley.

Ashley Pickin wrote: I had one of my Wolfe books with me and one person that came to the jam, sat and took PICS of every page!! no kidding! I told her to please stop and that if she liked it so much, then she could purchase it online. geezz.....

yea, this one I went too this lady was also taking pics of someones book and I thought that was so rude! I'm glad the owner of the book told her to stop too.

We're still working at getting our group off the ground. Now that we've landed some nice locations, the obstacle is to get everyone to paint instead of having some making sketches from mags, and others just watching us paint. I'm going to try a more structured agenda for next weeks meet and that means grabbing up magazines and albums when the painting bell tolls. I know that we have different skill levels in our group, so there is some apprehension, but the way I see it, you can't improve if you don't try to improve, kwim? I also don't want the sessions to turn out to be a way of gathering free resources for some people. I think we have a pretty good group, but if we're going to establish a presence here in Cleveland, we have to paint.

I agree about the whole, no mags or books thing. I think it's cool to network and 'talk shop' about which ones are a good buy or not.. but literally taking pics of someone's book instead of buying your own is stealing. The whole sitting and sketching from someone's book or magazine is wrong as well. I'm not a library! lol...

I think that it's best to have a theme for the night and planned activities.. kinda like a baby shower...lol. There are games that you know you're always going to play! What about 'name that brand of paint' where you blindfold someone and they have to identify the brand by the smell! lol.. idk, I just made that up.

I think that the hand painting thing looks like a lot of fun. It would be easy to get fun fabrics, or scrapbook papers for folks to choose from!

Debi's Doodles wrote:I've never organized one but I have been to a couple so far. The last one I posted about in the event section is having door prizes and small demos...someones going to be selling paints & supplies and I'm going to be offering custom coloring pages. They got the room for free and we all just need to buy a meal.

Other then that everyone just brings their stuff and you paint and have fun and chatter about techniques and ideas and so on. You can probably do a fun quick get-to-know-everyones-name game if you have alot of people attend.

Thanks Debi for your response. Love your profile pic! Do you have any other views of that pic? Did that make sense? So I can see more...just love it.

Ashley Pickin wrote:Hey Kerrie. Ryan and I have hosted a few in the area over the years, but usually only Paola shows up. We had one where 8 people showed up but it was pretty lame because no one except for me and one other person wanted to paint! I had one of my Wolfe books with me and one person that came to the jam, sat and took PICS of every page!! no kidding! I told her to please stop and that if she liked it so much, then she could purchase it online. geezz....

We can try for another one if you want, I just don't want them to turn into free training sessions(which is what they always seem to turn into...)

We could have one and do that hand painting thing, that looks like a fun activity!

We usually had them at restaurants(Red Robbins in Newport News, Golden Coral in VA Beach, and Friendly's in Norfolk...) where we could have our own private area.

I am definately going to try and do one. We have our own auction in Suffolk, so I was thinking of just using our auction house. We have tables, chairs, plenty of space, a friend of mine is a awesome photographer and is interested in taking pics for us. Great for his portfolio and ours! Refresh me on the hand painting thing. Metina promised she'd come if I threw one!(Hint!Hint!) Probably on a Saturday,we'll have food, munchies, drinks, start at noon until whenever.....

BustertheClown wrote:I am trying to the same thing....I have to meet with the owner of a local bowling alley that is always busy. Gonna see if a group of us can meet there and see what happens. Please keep me in the loop of any ideas that may come your way and I will do the same.

I absolutely will! I am going to have a photographer at ours, maybe people will come to help enlarge their portfolios. The photographer wins by having photos for his portfolio and we win with photos for our portfolio. The bowling alley is a great idea too!

artsyality wrote:


I am definately going to try and do one. We have our own auction in Suffolk, so I was thinking of just using our auction house. We have tables, chairs, plenty of space, a friend of mine is a awesome photographer and is interested in taking pics for us. Great for his portfolio and ours! Refresh me on the hand painting thing. Metina promised she'd come if I threw one!(Hint!Hint!) Probably on a Saturday,we'll have food, munchies, drinks, start at noon until whenever.....

On a Saturday? I can tell you right now that I might not be able to make it. I work gigs almost every Saturday

Sounds really convenient to have it at your own place though! Let me know your date decisions... I'll try and make it

We've been having our jams on Wednesday nights (the first wednesday of every month). We would never be able to have a Saturday jam without it being a major deal because that's when most painters i know work. Our jams are in the evening though because of the fact that most people work outside of face painting.I would like to have a jam start at noon and go all day and half the night, but I know I'd be the only person there, lol.

Ashley Pickin wrote:

artsyality wrote:


I am definately going to try and do one. We have our own auction in Suffolk, so I was thinking of just using our auction house. We have tables, chairs, plenty of space, a friend of mine is a awesome photographer and is interested in taking pics for us. Great for his portfolio and ours! Refresh me on the hand painting thing. Metina promised she'd come if I threw one!(Hint!Hint!) Probably on a Saturday,we'll have food, munchies, drinks, start at noon until whenever.....

On a Saturday? I can tell you right now that I might not be able to make it. I work gigs almost every Saturday

Sounds really convenient to have it at your own place though! Let me know your date decisions... I'll try and make it

Would a Sunday work any better? I would think a weekend day would work the best for the out of townees. I completely understand about your gigs..we'll see.

I know the ones that seemed to work best in the Uk were those where they arranged for the jammers to get a bunch of viictims to paint - like a local club or school to come in at some point and jammers got let loose on them.

Or some are held by painters who paint in zoos and the zoo lets all the jammers in for free if they paint for an hour or whatever. And most of the UK ones also collect for a charity, by a raffle etc. Also some daft paint games and the BIG thing in the Uk is home made CAKE! Gutted they started that after I left..

Cat x
Cat x

So I'm hosting a jam in about a month, does anyone have any ideas for games???

I have one... never played it though.

Have everyone write on a card a word, or two cards, one a noun, the other an adjective. Like Mad Libs for facepainters!

Put them in a hat (or hats for the two) and each has to grab a card. So, like in the second, I draw an adjective that says "red" or "chilly", and the noun I get "bulldozer" or "love". I now have to come up with a design that matches chilly love or red bulldozer.

Thats a really cool idea!!

For our next jam in my area we are going to have a crazy hat theme


Sorry Kerrie I just saw your question to me....do you mean the Jack design? I went ahead and just posted the step-by-step I had made when I first painted it. The post is in the "how to" section.

OK, I'm not sure if this would be a JAM... I'd like to know how many painters are in Jacksonville, FL & the surrounding areas would like to practice face painting, & have some network & idea sharing. I'm not ready to put together a full jam yet(I'm the mom of 5 active kids & my life is very busy already:-) I'd love to just connect w/ other face painters & see how we could help raise the level for each of us!