Cherry Reds, Chapter 4: The July 4th Edition

I had a great time again Friday evening, face painting at Cherry Reds in Wyckoff.  As an aside, I highly recommend the blueberry, strawberry, and banana smoothie, which is my absolute favorite.

My first "customer" of the evening was one of the owners, who suggested a koi - my very first time painting one!

And then this little cutie's grandma suggested something patriotic for the holiday.  Good thing, too, since at my actual annual July 4 event at the Indian Trails Club, we were so slammed I didn't have time for a single photo!  Without this one, I'd have no patriotic photos at all this year.

Later in the evening, a contingent of teens came in, some of whom were visiting from Texas.  Great group of girls, and so fun!

They were all into the sea life...

... and a dog.

I got to paint for Comic Con!

Only one customer, but I went to her house to do it and really got to see my vision - and hers - through.

Her plan was to go to NY Comic Con done up in an outfit inspired by a Dr. Who episode, "The Girl in the Fireplace."  Of course, I googled.

Yay, Steampunk!  I've done little touches of Steampunk, but last February at Wicked Faire, I was supposed to have an entire Steampunk body painting that fell through when my awesome model couldn't make it to Faire.

So this was a long time coming in my head.  The results:

 

She even thought of the globe!

I love a model who's creative and comes prepared.  She'd purchased the gears you see stuck on for some 3D effect, and she made the mask clear by taking a mirrored mask and removing the mirroring with acetone.  Awesome!

Guess where you can find me next?

Remember this?  Well, we're on!

I'll be at the Tribeca Film Festival again!  I'm face painting at the Kid's Festival on April 30.  This time, though, I'll be there all day long, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.!  Can you tell how excited I am?  I really love this event.

Of course, a post telling you where I'm going to be in the future doesn't give you any nifty photos to look at right now.  So here are some long overdue photos from an adult event I did in February...

Improvements

Tonight was another meeting of the northern NJ Face & Body Art Guild, and I was finally able to make it again. I've missed several meetings because of the show and rehearsals.  Now that we're out of rehearsals, and in fact there's only one weekend left, I've got time.

[Subliminal message:  The show is great, and there's only one weekend left, so you should see it!  Click here to buy tickets.]

And I am now, quite literally, a card-carrying member of the guild!

How cute is that?

This month's meeting was especially valuable, as we had a guest teacher to lead our workshop, Pashur.  Yup, the same great guy whose class I took back in November.  He's really a great person in addition to being a great artist, and it was fun to see him again.

In addition to a great new parrot design, he showed us ways to really improve our sharks.  Plus, I learned this great tattoo-style rose that, when filled in and shaded, is similar to an Ed Hardy look.

Polished up, filled in, shaded, and surrounded by some tribals or thorny vines, this will be a phenomenal addition to my repertoire.

The best part of Pashur's workshops are the games that get you to push your boundaries.  One game was to fingerpaint fifteen 3-color roses with a vine, leaves, and a bumblebee... first person to finish won, so we needed to move fast and throw skill and "pretty" out the window.  The range of outcomes was hilarious.

Mine was second from the left.

I can't wait to put my new skills and ideas to good use!

Washing My Kit

Between each face painting gig, I bring my kit(s) into the house and wash each brush and sponge that I've used.  I'm sure you find this to be good news, right?

Now, as a fine artist, I'd been taught to use Ivory soap to wash my brushes when oil painting.  It makes sense as a nearly-pure soap that cuts through the oils really well.  So when I started face painting, it made sense to me to do the same with my face painting brushes.  Granted, face paints are really makup and not paint at all, and they're therefore not oily, but they are highly pigmented and can stain sponges and brushes something fierce.

I stopped that.  I've started using Purity pure Castile soap instead.  Yes, I make it myself.  When my husband and I started our soap business, Reef Botanicals, I posted it here.  Well, now it's flourishing!

Not long ago, Mark Reid espoused the virtues of cleaning his sponges and brushes in a pure Castile soap.  He bought some Purity and raved about its success.  Since then, other face painters have followed suit.

This is what Ashley Pickin had to say about it:

OMG it cleaned my brushes and sponges SO WELL!  Brushes that had been black with Wolfe black for like months came back to a light shade of gray... I couldn't believe it.  I had used all kinds of other stuff on them and they never came that clean!  My golden taklon ones turned back to their golden color! Amazing! ... STRONGLY recommend trying that stuff.  It's awesome!

And today, I heard from my friend Cindy, who tested Purity on her face painting sponges last night (and bought a new camera):

First, she hand-washed face painting sponges in a lingerie bag in an unscented liquid hand soap, and got these results:

She pointed out the overall pink tinges of the lighter-colored sponges, which were originally a very light peach, and the pink stains on the formerly white lingerie bag.  She'd spent "a good five minutes squishing, squeezing, resoaping, rinsing and rerinsing these sponges."  They were washed until the water ran clear with the last application of soap, which meant three rounds of soap.

Then, she tested dishwashing liquid, and got this:

They're better and brighter, but the bag is still stained and there's still a good amount of face paint staining the sponges.  She had again washed and rinsed until the water ran clear, which took two applications of the dishwashing liquid.

And then she tried again, with Purity Castile soap, and got this:

It took two rounds of soap and they're still a bit stained, but the sponges themselves have returned to their original pale peach color!  They are bright and not nearly so embarrassing for a face painter to pull out of her kit.  And did you notice...?  No stains on the lingerie bag!

Even better, since you know that Purity is safe for use on the face, if there's any residue on the sponges or brushes, it won't hurt anyone if transferred to a face during face painting.  There are no allergens here, since it's completely color-, fragrance-, and additive-free!

This would work for any cleanup, though.  Even though face paint is really makeup and not paint, this would work just as well for oils, acrylics, watercolors... after all, in my many years of art classes I was taught to wash my oil paint brushes with a bar of Ivory.  What could be better than that?  Purity!

Go, Rangers!

OK, I'm from NJ, I know.  And I'm really a Devils fan.  But I married a Rangers fan, and since we met, he'd been talking about me painting a Rangers jersey on his all-white cat, Neptune.  Neptune, in addition to being all white, is a lump.  He's a sweetheart, snuggly, and likes to lie around.  You can mush him to bits and he doesn't care.

So we figured it'd work fine.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell... we found out that Neptune is a little squirmy when being painted for any length of time.  I should've known; he will only take licking/cleaning from his sister Catimus for so long before walking away, and I imagine this felt similar.  Don't worry, I used all Snazaroo, it's perfectly safe.  Child toy safety rated, even.  And no animals - not even Neptune - were harmed in the painting of this cat or taking of the photos.

Almost none.  My dog, Meg's, feelings were hurt, but she gets like that any time I pay too much attention to one of the cats.  But that's it, I promise.  And even that was fixed; I painted her head with a NJ Devils logo (not my best work, I admit), and she just lay there the whole time, happy for the attention.

Those sharp edges are just not easy on fur!

Wicked Faire Revisited

I know that I mentioned in my Wicked Faire post that I was hired last minute to do a full body painting on a cat for a fashion show that was schedule to occur at the Faire.  The request was not to make her look like a cat, but to take my cues from the mask she'd be wearing with her ears and tail.  I had just over an hour to complete the look, from shoulders to shoes.  I did it!

The model, Nicole, was great to work with, and apparently was also great at the show, which I unfortunately had to miss.

Then again, she's a dancer, so how could she not be great?  Those boots are painted on, by the way.  Nicole had on t-strap shoes, but we wanted her to look like she was wearing boots, so I painted them right up her legs.

I did my best to mimic the swirls and curls of the mask, as well as the crosshatch pattern and fading that were involved in it.

All photos in this post were taken by Chris Bossio.

LA Fete 2010

I have had the most amazing time this past week, at the Louisiana Living Arts Festival in New Orleans, otherwise known as LA Fete.

LA Fete started in 2006, when I was offered a pot of gumbo. No, seriously. I'm a member of some international face and body art discussion groups, and I mentioned in one that my favorite food was Cajun. Susie Pierce, otherwise known as Susie the Crazy Cajun, told me that if I came down to her hometown of Baton Rouge, she'd make me a pot of gumbo.  My response was, "You name the weekend, I'm there," and all of a sudden there were about 30 other artists chiming in with "me too!"  We found ourselves picking St. Patrick's Day weekend of 2007, and LA Fete was born.

Once a party was planned with so many artists, it was only natural that we intend to practice our art, and that morphed into scheduled classes and workshops.

So once a year, for 4 days in March, I go down to New Orleans for LA Fete.  I take classes, jam with my friends, face and body paint, and practice my henna. 

We attend the New Orleans St. Paddy's Day parade, take an afternoon to face paint at the Audubon Zoo and donate the proceeds to charity, and body paint models for a show at a French Quarter club.

On Thursday night, we had a zombie crawl, and I got to become a tourist attraction in my own right.  I'm waiting to see photos of myself show up on Facebook or Google.  My friend Z painted me, and I painted other friends Dot Com the clown and Liz Alaniz.

This year, for the first time, my husband Eric came with me.  After the Fete was over, we stayed an extra day and went to the aquarium.

We're finally home and exhausted, but it was worth it!  Nowhere else do I get an experience like that, working alongside the masters and feeding off of each others' creativity.  My clients will benefit from it, too.  Every time I come back from LA Fete, my skills are vastly improved.  I can't wait to try them out this weekend!

Body Painting: Alice in Wonderland

In my last post, I showed a bit of the body painting I did on Toni at Wicked Faire. Well, yesterday I received a CD of photos from one of the professional photographers, and my biggest problem has been figuring out which ones to post because they're all so great!

All photos in this post were taken by Phillip Makselan.

Toni met me in the Green Room with her bra cups already on, and while we were waiting to be called to the stage, I laid down the blue base and the glitter spray.  The blue is Fantasy Worldwide cream; it's really easy to wear and I knew she'd be comfortable in it.  Last year, as we found out, the chocolate I used on her corset tightened as it dried and pinched her.  No issues like that with the creams!  The glitter spray is also skin-safe, made by Mehron, a theater makeup company.

This photo (above) was right after we got on stage.  You can't tell, I don't think, but I was already exhausted. I spent the entire day and night in Renaissance Faire garb, and that corset is tight!  I started "work" at noon.  Plus, I had the surprise full-body painting earlier in the day, and other paintings throughout, so by 8:15 p.m. when this photo was taken, I was ready to lie down (and the day ended at 2 a.m.!).  

Thing is, when I'm painting, I wake back up.  It's just too fun and makes me too happy.  Plus, having an audience is always a good thing.  :D

I started with the Cheshire cat's face because it was the very first element I thought of when I knew I wanted to do this design.  What's Wonderland without the cat?  Once I blocked out that shape, though, I was all over the place, painting everywhere at once.

We had a pretty good audience.  It was smallish, but constant as some people went to see other shows, and then come back, and others passing in the hall poked their heads in to see what was up and ended up either coming in to sit down, or hanging out in the doorway.

On the fly, I realized the teapot really should have red flowers, even though it wouldn't quite be a "set" with the teacup.

S'ok!  

Body painting is really physical, for both the artist and the model.  I kept asking her to turn, raise and lower her arms, and take different positions.  At the same time, I was often bending over and around her.

Or even crouching down to paint upwards.

I did mostly stick to the front first.

At this point, I was actually down on my knees to paint, just to make it easier.

For the back, I was all about the mushrooms and caterpillar.  Together with the Cheshire cat, the caterpillar is my other favorite character of Wonderland.

And what's the caterpillar without his hookah?

Once all the big colors were blocked in, I was able to add details and outlining, since I was going for a cartoonish sort of look.

To tie the back and front together, I used a vine that traveled over Toni's shoulder.  The funny thing about that vine... for Valentine's Day, my husband bought me a 2010 leatherbound edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Other Stories, in hot pink, to inspire me for this painting.  Around the outside of the cover is a trellis of black vines that - last minute, did inspire me.

This is the finished back.

The finished front.

And a few nifty detail shots for you.

And all done in just about an hour!