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Toby (3) and Sammy (5). I’ll probably be forced to delete these photos before they hit their teenage years, but we’ll just enjoy them here while we can!

Let’s just say that my boys have learned now to take FULL advantage of their Momma when she has all her paints spread out in her studio working on designs.  Today they both wanted their bellies painted, so I went all out.  First Toby came to me and said, “Momma!  I wanna Mickey Mouse Clubhouse come-inside-its-fun-inside on my tummy!” Shortly after, Sammy was ready for a Hot Wheels Monster Truck. Well, maybe SOMEDAY I’ll have a customer request a Monster Truck and I will have had TONS of practice!  Here are a few pictures of our little belly session done today, right before naps.  I sprayed Toby’s with some of my Kryolan fixer spray.  So, we’ll see if that helps it last longer!

Here are a few photos of them in progress…

I had so much fun coming up with Easter cheek art designs for my March e-newsletter, I just had to share all of these how-to’s with you! These were all painted with Kryolan paints, with the outlines and white in Wolfe.  The neon google eyes are great for Easter designs with their bright, springy colors!  Scroll down for 11 step-by-steps!

Talk about FUN mail!!

I am sooooo excited to have received my first shipment of TAG one strokes and split cakes this week!!  Here are a few samples of my first attempts to use three of the one-stroke cakes: Berry (used for the rose petals), Snake (used for the leaves), Ocean (used for the dolphin), and Unicorn….

1-Strokes that are now available!  Don’t forget the brush! 😉

 

Well, I got too impatient to wait for my hubby to let me paint him, so I went ahead and did my next “Luck of the Irish Challenge” entry today on my leg again.  I made up sortof a Celtic dragon, incorporating the rainbow in his belly, lucky horseshoe on his gold leprechaun hat, and a four-leaf clover on the end of his tail.  🙂

Close up of the head

I drew the design with a white Mehron Pro Pencil and started adding Kryolan colors

Adding the green and some gold on the wings

Gold hat and scales

Black and White…always my favorite part!

We are having our first snow day of the winter here in MN and I am getting a little stir crazy.  Especially since we didn’t leave the house yesterday either due to the snow.  So, once I got the boys down for naps I thought I’d take a crack at an entry for the Face Paint Forum’s latest monthly challenge: “Luck of the Irish!“

I didn’t want to just go with the usual four leaf clovers, rainbows, and pot-o-gold.  So, I came up with this little scene that I like to call “Luck o’ the Eighties!”  I brought back some characters from my eighties childhood.  My Little Pony, the lucky Care Bear, and the Lucky Charms guy have banded together to track down the gold at the end of the rainbow once and for all!

Here are some progress photos!  I’m not quite sure how I feel about plastering so many photos of my thigh on the internet.  But hey, sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the good of creativity.  I apologize to your eyeballs.

My pencil sketch on the back of some of the boys’ scrap drawing paper…(hence the sideways parachutes in the background!)

First I drew out the design using a white Mehron pro pencil ($5).

Next I started filling in the various greens using Kryolan paints and some cosmetic glitter.

Adding a little dimension with lighter and darker shades of the same greens.

Finally something other than GREEN! I did all of this with my two Wolfe brushes, #1 and #4 round.

Well now, it sure does POP when you outline with the Wolfe black, doesn’t it?! I used some Amerikan Body Art Liquid Bling to add the sparkly purple horseshoe on the pony and the gold buckles on “Lucky’s” shoe and hat.

I was gonna stop there but then decided to add a rainbow with a pile of gold.

Filled in the inside of the rainbow with a sky blue, added a little base shadows, and done!

A close-up of the gold.  Oooh, shiny!

Love how that Liquid Bling makes the buckle and horseshoe pop!!

I have another design I’d like to try next but we’ll see if it happens.  I’m trying to convince my wonderfully supportive husband to let me paint on his beautifully hairless and never-been-painted back, although I may have finally found a limit to his support of my business.  I didn’t even want to try suggesting ponies and Care Bears for him though so I started with my own leg! Ha! Stay tuned and see if I can convince him to let me paint a more manly St. Patrick’s Day design on him…

Last month my little Monster Truck fan got to go see the Monster Jam in Minneapolis with his Daddy and Grandpa.  My favorite part about monster truck show is staying home while the guys go…AND of COURSE painting up my little man!!

We started with some dirt on his forehead.  I love to use my rubber pore sponge and black stipple sponge for dirt!  First I sponge on some brown with a regular sponge, then go over it with a lighter and a darker shade of brown for highlights/shadows with the pore sponge and/or stipple sponge for dirt.

Once the dirt dried thoroughly, I used my awesome tire track stencil with some Wolfe black paint.   Stencils can make some really awesome effects in very little time, but they do take some practice to get the right water-to-paint ratio to get a clean transfer.

Next we did a tire! I started with some metallic silver Kryolan paint...

Then some nice Wolfe black…

…and Wolfe white for the highlights!  The white really MAKES the treads!

 I finished it off with some “wiggle lines” and a couple puffs of dust. 🙂

Then he requested Grave Digger on one arm and Hot Wheels on the other!  He’s not spoiled at ALL.

 One very happy and excited Monster truck fan!

All ready to go on a manly night out with Daddy and Grampa!  Next year little brother can go too.

Our family just returned from a Disney cruise!  Yes, that is why our office has been closed for the week…being a one woman company, every now and then I have to close the shop for a family vacation.  Thank you for your patience!! I’m in the process of catching up on emails and orders and should have your orders placed during that time ready to ship out on Monday!

Anyway, this face painter couldn’t even go on vacation without doing some face painting.  I brought along a super miniature paint set specifically for “pirate night” on the ship!  It consisted of a small pill box filled with 8 basic Kryolan colors, one #2 sable brush, and a little piece of my stipple sponge (for pirate stubble!)

The tiny set worked perfectly for my tiny pirates in our tiny stateroom bathroom! 🙂 Here are some pictures…

getting paints ready…boys waiting their turn!

Sammy’s mustache, stubble, curly chest hairs and cut

I painted a parrot and sword on Toby’s arms.  (He had aloe on his cheeks & nose as he had a little too much sun in Grand Cayman that day!)

Enjoying the pirate party on the pool deck, complete with a show, dancing, and fireworks!

Of course I would have loved to have more supplies…especially better brushes.  I brought one small sable brush that had already fluffed out on me (lost it’s nice pointy tip) as I figured brushes wouldn’t fare well in a suitcase.  So, I couldn’t get much detail, but the boys loved it and that’s what counts!!  If I were to do it again I might bring my black Starblends to do an eye patch on them!  But, they were SO tired that night, they were rubbing there eyes a lot!

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!