I Guess I'm the Family Face Painter!

Several  years ago I was hired for a house party to celebrate a first communion.  This past October, it was time to celebrate the first communion of the younger sibling, so they had me back!  These kids are seriously creative.

Ever hear of a Creeper?  I hadn't.

If you're wondering what's going on with the other side of the leprechaun's face, he wanted half Blue (the dog).  Like I said, creative!

Tribeca Film Festival

The Tribeca Film Festival Kid's Day was Saturday, and this time I was there from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., working nonstop!  It was crazy, with people waiting for me for over an hour.

When I first got there, my station in Washington Market Park didn't have a table and chair yet, so I took a few flower and "beautiful day" photos.

Just as I finished setting up, a short line started to form... that didn't stay short!  One of the very first "customers" I had wanted to be a vampire. A girl after my own heart. My vampire face changes every time I paint it, so this is the one I did early yesterday.

I was happy with it, and she loved it, but I think I improved upon it later in the day, when this boy also asked to be a vampire.

A little Eddie Munster-ish, but Eddie was supposed to evoke a vampire look so I'm OK with that.  This kid was absolutely ecstatic and his family wowed.  The initial reaction when he saw the mirror was, "Even better than I imagined it would be!"  Perfect reaction!

On the other end of the spectrum was this faerie princess, all shimmery and with hearts and rosebuds.

I did make a mistake.  I brought with m a Frappuccino and a Special K protein bar, but no sandwich or anything for lunch, and no water.  What was I thinking?  Especially the water - I always bring water!  In fact, I brought water for my face painting, but none for me.

Thankfully, the volunteers, organizers, and employees of the Tribeca Film Festival are phenomenal.  Not only did they get someone to help me carry my things into the park to set up, but they came by throughout the day to make sure I didn't need anything.  And the first one who came by, came with bottles of SmartWater.  Perfect!  As it is, I didn't even drink it all because I was really painting without any break at all, barely even for a swig of water.  Not the healthiest, but I always feel bad to stop when I see the line is so long.  I really need to treat myself better.  And when the volunteers asked if I needed anything else periodically, I really should've mentioned food; it was silly not to.

Ah, well, at least I took the time to snap a few more photos, like this whimsical full face flower that I painted upon request for this young lady.

Interestingly, someone must've seen her and liked it also, because later on in the day I got another request for the same face!

Two of my other favorite faces of the day were both dragons.  The first request actually caused me to change from my standard dragon face to something entirely different.  A girl wanted a very girly dragon, in pink.  Okie doke.  So this is what I came up with.

I even made the scales heart shaped!  That was a fun one.  So then later when another girl wanted a more traditional dragon, this one had an obvious influence on it.

The crowd at the Tribeca Film Festival really is terrific too.  The kids were great, and I appreciated the parents, grandparents, and guardians who expressed concern for my well-being.  They're good eggs, all of them.

We did have one scare during the day, though.  A little boy, maybe four years old, was throwing some dirt at my table, which concerned me because I didn't want dirt and pebbles in the face paints, with the resulting potential to scratch my models.  I was able to get it cleaned out, but I really couldn't seem to get the boy's attention and have him stop.  And no adult would claim him!

I called the event organizer, now more afraid for a lost little boy than my supplies, and the Festival folk were able to reunite him with his parents' friends, who had taken him and his twin brother to the playground and hadn't noticed that he was missing.  Phew, crisis averted.

At the end of the day, my back was sore, my neck and shoulders stiff, but I was happy at the honestly absolutely awesome gig.  The people were wonderful - both festival people and patrons, I got to be creative despite the thousand butterflies and puppies I must've painted, and I had a blast.  Even fighting my way through the Holland Tunnel afterwards was worth it.

Halloween 2010

Ah, Halloween, my favorite holiday.

We were so busy this year with so many things that we actually skipped our annual Holiday party and instead made other plans.

I did, however, face paint at my usual Halloween gig, the Bergen County Cabbage Night Festival.  I love this event, and it's great for the kids.

My first model of the day was this adorable girl who wanted something scary and settled on an alien.

She was hanging around as I set up my table, and was the only one around, but once I painted her I was swamped for even longer than my scheduled three hours.

Some more girls who were into the scary faces (my personal favorites) were this zombie, vampire, and witch.

Some weren't into face painting, but were sure into the theme.  A new design for me that was hugely popular this year was my haunted house scene.  I did some on hands, some on faces.

And my first vampire hand painting.  I'm used to turning people into vampires, more than drawing them.  Still, a fair representation, I think.

And of course I had my usual butterflies, tigers, puppies, and this cute cheetah.

Plus, my first ever rocket request, which I then duplicated on this young man's brother.

This next design was a heck of a compromise.  The model wanted a flower, just a simple flower.  Her mom was pushing for a mardi gras mask.  So I suggested a flowered mardi gras mask!

Then there were these three teens who were so cool.  The first one saw the length of my line and chose to keep things moving for me, even though she'd waited for nearly two hours herself.  She requested just a cat nose and whiskers.  The second dubbed herself a comic book geek and requested a superhero mask, which was voted by the three as the "best superhero mask she'd ever gotten" and "sick" (a good thing in teenspeak).  The third wanted nerd glasses, tape and all.

I was so crazy busy painting, that I actually handed them my phone to take photos of each other for me!  I love how they all got into character with their paintings.

While that afternoon I was a Renaissance wench,

later that night, my husband Eric and I went to Forest of Fear, a haunt organized by the same group that does the NY Renaissance Festival across the street from the Faire grounds.  For that, I went as a zombie Alice in Wonderland, and Eric wore this terrific mask we bought him in New Orleans, with a black velvet cloak.

Today, I went trick or treating wtih my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew.  My nephew, for his first Halloween, was Curious George, my brothe-in-law was the Man in the Yellow Hat, and my sister was the bunch of balloons in the sky.  I was a clown.

We do have one more Halloween event - we're going to Blaze at Van Cortlandt Manor next Saturday.  I'll let you know how it was!

My July 4th

My 4th of July this year was long.  And hot.  I have no idea how the kids do it, running around in the sun and heat, but I wish I was one of them sometimes.  Of course, I don't remember being that fine in that sort of weather, so maybe I was always old?

(Of course, I'll only be 40 at the end of this month, so "old" is a state of mind.  Or body.  I haven't decided which.)

On the morning of the 4th, my husband Eric and I made shampoo, since our web store was out of stock.  Then in the afternoon, I was hired by a wonderful event organizer, Premier Productions, to paint kids at a big party at the Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, NJ.  It's a beautiful place, and the event organizer was very good to the entertainers.  She had canopies, tables, and chairs set up for each of us, plus enough cold water to keep us going.

That striped tent had games for the kids to play.  There was also this terrific balloon artist.

Plus, a magician.  The balloon artist apparently had a large number of requests for aliens, because then the kidos came to me to have their faces match!  As someone who's ever only painted one alien face before, it was fun to have several in one day; gave me a challenge to change them up a bit as I went.

Even some of the club staff got painted, like this Tinkerbell fan, which is always fun for me.

Some of the kids stuck with the patriotic theme, of course.

And others didn't.

Some went completely another direction and were looking for my favorite, the horror faces.  One boy was very definite about wanting to be a vampire, and another, age 12, just gave me the instruction that he wanted the most gory, bloody, horrible thing I could do.  So here goes, a vampire and a zombie.

And you just have to love kids who play up to the photography!  Hams are the best!

Believe it or not, after four hours of this, I went home, took a shower, and then Eric and I went to a party hosted by one of our own friends.  It wasn't until the next day that we got to see fireworks in Ridgewood.