A Great Event and a Sigh

Last night, I painted at a holiday party for The Valerie Fund, in Livingston, NJ.

It was a terrific event. There was another face painter there as well, Hug-a-Me the Clown, and it was so much fun to work with her! There were four more clowns doing balloons and playing with the kids and their parents, a DJ, and some games for the kids.

They had a small but tasty buffet, and I think I drank three bottles of apple juice - I had no idea I was so in need of hydration!

Everyone was wonderful, the volunteers, the kids, the parents, everyone. We did a ton of face painting, and I was having a great painting night - very on the mark, great designs, and everything came out exactly like I wanted it to. We painted a large family of kids who were then going to take photos for their Christmas cards! I did one girl with a really pretty holly princess design, her little brother with an adorable snowman, and some others.

There was one absolutely adorable little boy who wanted to be a lion. Not a tiger, mind you, most definitively a lion. He was sure of it. Now... my lions... are varied. I've yet to pinpoint exactly the lion design I want and love, so every time I do them, they're a little different. This one was so cute that he was making people giggle, including me. He took some offense, telling me, "they're laughing at me!" I explained to him, "No, they're laughing because you're too cute! You know how sometimes you see a puppy that's so incredibly cute it makes you laugh, you can't help it?" He nodded yes. I said, "It's the same thing. You're so cute they can't help it!" He understood.

Why the sigh, then? I couldn't take photos because of HIPAA regulations. It makes complete sense, and I'm not railing against the regulations by any means, but it just figures that the best painting I've done in months is at the one event where I can't get a record of it. So... sigh. And a chuckle, too.

Tree Lighting

I painted on Sunday for the... geez, I don't even remember how many years I've been painting at the Ho-Ho-Kus tree lighting! It's quite a few at this point.

I love this event, despite the cold. We get a heated tent that makes us even more popular than we always are as face painters. I had my new repertoire of holiday designs ready to go, but the line was so long and the crowd so... crowded... that I didn't have time for many photos. I did get two cute ones, though the secong isn't a technically good photo. The rush and the close quarters made it tough; I was trying to snap photos very quickly so I didn't make the rest of the line wait too long.

My Time in Connecticut

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I attended a two-day seminar in Connecticut, hosted by my friend Z, and taught by another friend, world-renowned body painter Pashur. It was absolutely amazing.

We spent two full days learning technique and design from Pashur, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., eating great food provided by (and some of it cooked by) Z, devouring carrot cake and fudge made by one of our classmates, and generally having a good time. In the evenings, we just painted as the mood struck, watched each other paint, tried out each others' supplies, and got some great critiques.

Every time I do something like this, my painting improves, so I can't wait until Sunday when I'm painting at Ho-Ho-Kus' tree lighting to see how this experience has affected me.

The first day's class was themed in designs inspired by insects and flowers, and this is some of my work:

I love this drop-shadow technique too! My spiders will never be the same.

During the jam that night, I tried a couple things, just to get Pashur's critiques. They were invaluable, but this is what I did:

The second day of class was all about holiday designs, and in addition to an AMAZING and scary Jack Frost design I hope to use this Sunday, and some great ornament and snowflake ideas, I picked up the CUTEST Rudolph and penguin that I absolutely KNOW I'll be using!

Plus, during the jam, I knocked this out, loosely based on a holly butterfly Pashur showed us: