Vacation Face Painting

So me and the hubby (and 3 boys) went on our first ever 'family vacation' this past weekend. We went to Glenwood Spring (here in Colorado). It was lovely. The first night we met family at a RV parking camp and I had brought my face paints to entertain the kids.

I FINALLY got to do a few that I have been wanting to do and get my own pictures of so I can use them on my board. Here are two designs I was super happy to finally get pictures of!!

Here is a 'Mark Reid' Serpent Design *taught at the Dec 08 FP Class here in Colorado*
This was a 2 minute design!



Here is my version of an Angie Anders Butterfly Design I just love!!


Just some quick, fun stuff before we lost our light and a thunder storm threatened to wash us away!!

OH My Gosh! How awesome is that serpent! and 2 minutes to boot....seroiusly?
wowsa!
BTW!....The butterfly is gorgeous!!

Glad you got a break! Those faces are fab!

Glenda

It was too funny on that serpent. The mom was worried about the rain and the fact we were all swimming the next day (so ergo, don't spend alot of time on a design).

I asked her, "If I can paint it in 2 minutes, can I do anything I want?" She agreed! It isn't the 'neatest/most crisp' work...but it was more than sufficient to get a kids display photo! I was supper happy! Plus the boy LOVED it! So a happy customer in my book rules!

My own boys still won't hold still for a full facial! /sigh

Are the sun, moon and stars stencils? If so, where did you get them. I've been playing with the idea of getting some stencils to speed up some designs. I definately want to get the tire track. What other stencils do you like?

The star, moon and sun are all stencils on one sheet. I think I picked it up at Hobby Lobby or Michael's. They were for 'wall' art, but they are nice and bendy and work well on skin. I bought some 'Stencil Tac' (designed for tat stencils) and sprayed the back. It really grabs onto the skin well, but pulls off easily. If you do not over load your sponge, there is no bleed under either!

If I'd had more time, I'd have filled in the lines on the moon with white/silver, outlined the stars with black, and done a bit more on the sun, though it did have garnet and gold glitter over the paint...but outlining would 'up grade' the look relatively fast! She was my last one, and it was starting to blow really hard and thunder and lightening...so we just did a few pics really fast and then I packed up! Still, it gives nice clean lines really fast! Rainbow cakes or multi color cakes work well over stencils too, and are super fast!

I usually just browse the 'stencil' wall isle in craft stores. I have a few 'glitter tats' but they degrade too quickly and are really just for one time use.

I got the 'girls/boys' stencil set from Silly Farm, and they are ok...kinda hard and not so bendy. You REALLY need to press them against the skin for FP...I imagine they are fine for air brush work just lightly being held up to the skin. I sprayed the backs with Stencil Tac (Elmer's also has something similar out there at Walmart). It helps with controling the stencil.

I want the Australian stencils that are made from a very flexible, yet thick and durable 'rubber' type material. I saw some at our Denver Face Paint Guild during an airbrush demo. They look perfect for Face painting!


You can also buy the clear plastic laminate 'used to make a table cloth cover protector' material at a craft store and cut your own. The plastic has a natural 'grab' to it and is very flexible and would even bend around arms for 'arm bands'. A dab of Stencil Tac and they would so rock! Washable and reusable too!

Right now, for stencils, I only use that dragon you see (and then outline and add starbursts by hand..or flames...or whatever they request and the celestial set. I use the stars alot for flags and in the center of 'firework' looking starbursts. It's a good one to have if you don't want to take the time to freehand a star, or several in a row.

Found the link to the australian stencils...Airbrush Body Art:
Airbrush Body Art

Heather, love your work..Beautiful..

Thank you Reneec!

I think Mark Reid teaches that serpent at ALL his workshops! I just never got around to trying it! I used Paradise for the Serpent.

And that butterfly design is one of Angie's 'Award wining designs'. I saw it on her site in purple! (I want to do it on me in purple...love that color!) The model prefered blue...actually all the girls that day wanted blue stuff! I also meant to mention that I used the Ben Nye Lumiere 'Grand Color Palette'. The cosmic blue powder. I also dusted 'Gems' diamond dust powder over it to make it really sparkle (though in the photo it doesn't show up as well). It was so easy and fast to brush on the powder for the butterfly shape. Really easy to control the application too! That is Wolfe Black for the linework, and Paradise white (was out of the wolfe white).

Thank you again Angie for an awesome 'inspirational' design! It will see much use as I'm painting at a Diversity Fair on the 15th of August and it'll be one on my board!

Thanks for the info on the stencils. Wow that Austrailian site has hundreds of stencils. Deciding which ones will be hard. In the meantime I'll check out the craft stores.

Coincidentally, just got a call to do a sporting event with over 200 kids for just 2 hours by myself. They understand that only a small portion of the kids will be able to be painted. I just placed an order for stencils with Austrialian Airbrush. I'm hoping with the stencils I'll be able to get more kids painted and will only be offering quick cheek art.

Whoo hooo! Good luck! I have one of those type events coming up soon...like 150 in one hour. I told the client I can not do that many even if it's just dabbing spots on them! She says that's the 'high count' possible to show up..yeah right...I'll be swamped!!

Actually some just like to watch and don't want anything...so maybe...just maybe....

You could try the assembly line method where you group the kids according to what they want to be... limit their choices... then paint them in a line. If you're doing tigers, you go down the line and put a base on each one, then the stripes, etc.

This is very efficient for painting masses of kids in a short amount of time.

It might be efficient... but how can you do it if you have to use clean sponges and brushes on each person? You can't.

Nope, you sure can't.

I was thinking of doing the assembly line for some designs. I'm waiting for my order of stencils and am hoping that will quicken things up. I'm kinda looking forward to speed face painting - it will be a challenge.

I did the sporting event over the weekend. I did not receive the stencils so had to free hand all my designs. I didn't do assembly line painting. I'm 5'9" and thought I can't bend several hours painting kids. I can't sit on a chair and have the kids move back and forth to me while I paint bits and pieces on each. I usually use a director's chair when painting and used it for this event. It went well. I limited the choices to 8 quick designs. About 75% of the kids chose 2 of the 8 designs. I made rainbow cakes in team colors that worked really well. Has anyone done assembly line face painting? How do you do it (sit or stand, do you move to each kid or do you have the kids move to you, is it faster?)

I don't do assembly line style facepainting. I just make the design options way more limited or 'modify' as I'm doing them according to the line length/time left.

I actually had to cancel my Sunday appt, as the kids are all sick and I got it too...some virus that feels like a cross between tonsilitis and the flu...not fun.

This means she will probably cancel me next week as well, as it wouldn't be fair to the other group of kids if I do them and didn't do this last week's group. I totally understand, plus I didn't want to be sick and painting children!

But that would have been a 'super fast' speed painting test! Definitely was planning on lots of stencil and quickie freehand stuff!

ohhh those are great! I especially love the serpent!

I only do assembly line if I really have to... and usually it's a design that doesn't need a sponge anyways because it's the end of the line and I'm only doing very fast things.. Like spiders/names/flowers...