Month: December 2012

Sunday morning and afternoon I had the opportunity to paint at a Christmas brunch event that I’ve been doing for several years now with Santa.  My mom has joined me for the last few years too, as they definitely require at LEAST two painters!  We both paint with a steady line from 10:00-2:00. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the chance to paint some more of my new designs.  I used some red Liquid Bling for gingerbread man eyes, and that ended up being a very popular design! 

Here are some photos…

A few more Christmas cheek art designs that I didn’t already show in my last post

Mom painting

Santa Carlucci and Mrs Cheryl Claus

Our area, before the kids started to pile in! The velvet ropes were a life saver this year!

Santa Carlucci talking to the ladies

Many thanks again to Santa Carlucci for bringing us along again this year!  I have a little break in the action now, but next weekend will be busy painting more Christmasy cheeks so stay tuned!

Tonight I had a fun time painting at the Village at Mendota Heights’ “Mendota Lights” Christmas event!  It was very busy and we were both painting non-stop from 4:00-7:00!  This year we had the most mild weather we’ve had for the event, so I think a lot of people came out.  It was perfect for the horse drawn hayrides!

Hayrides going by the building we were in

This year I totally re-did my Christmas design boards, so I had quite a few new ones to do which was really fun.  Some of them I simplified so that I could handle the crowds better, like Rudolph and the angel which I turned into just wings and a halo.  Here is a little montage of a few of the designs painted tonight:

Simplifying a few designs allowed me a little time to step it up a bit by adding a few acrylic rhinestones and using some Liquid Bling.  I used the star rhinestones on the tops of the Christmas trees, attached with Spirit Gum, and they were a HIT!  The Liquid Bling was really cool for the Grinch’s red eyes.

Christmas tree with a rhinestone star

The Grinch and a fun Snowman eye! I used a white StarBlend for the snowman eye which worked great.

Liz working her magic!

Had to get a shot of this little cutie with his stuffed Rudolf and his Rudolf cheek!

We really love it when the roaming carolers come in our building for a few songs!

Liz with Santa and Mrs Claus!

Friday night I had a blast painting a sweet 14 (and a half) year old girl to look like the Wicked Witch for her school’s Wizard of Oz play.

Her fabulous mom picked up the great nose and chin at a local theater shop and had them attached with spirit gum and ready to go when I arrived.  Which is a good thing, because it ended up taking twice as long to paint as I thought!  The reason was mainly due to the Kryolan UV Dayglow paint I was using for the green base.  Don’t get me wrong of course, I’d highly recommend using the fluorescent green for the wicked witch!  It was such a nice, bright green.  But, being that it goes on very thin and transparent (unlike the standard Kryolan Aquacolor basic colors), it takes a few thick layers with dry time between each one to get good coverage.

I wish I had a clean “before” shot but above you can see it in progress at the beginning.  I started by painting the nose and chin, knowing that the paint would take longer to dry and layer on plastic vs skin.

To get the dark wrinkles and creases in the correct places, I had her do her most wicked witchy face and then painted in her natural creases.  The black is Wolfe black, the blackest black out there, which worked great for the eyebrows!  I used a mix of the UV Dayglow green with some of my other darker greens for shading and dimension.

Once I was done with the wet makeup, I dusted it with some Kryolan transparent setting powder, then blended all the greens with a dry green StarBlend.  This really helped to smooth and blend the various greens together.  It also gave the whole face a nice, soft finish.  I used some of Mehron’s INtense Pro Pressed Pigment Powders for the green that went up to and around her eyes, and some bright lime green for highlights.

To finish her off I did a little black eyeliner and some bright red lipstick, which was requested by the school play’s organizers. Here are a couple photos that her mom took at the school after she was all in costume! (I did some editing to black out the background…)

All in all I think she turned out pretty cool! I wish I could have gone with to watch the play!

Tonight I’m off to the 7th Annual “Mendota Lights” Christmas celebration at the Village at Mendota Heights with the friendly and talented miss Liz!  Come on out to get your free face painting from 4:00-7:00 tonight, and enjoy a visit with Santa, as well as free hayrides and music…it’s going to be a gorgeous night to enjoy the festivities!