Face Painting

Several years ago when I moved to California to help Laura and Jeff with their party renal business Laura asked me if I would like to learn to do children's face painting. I said "NO... how can you expect me to paint faces when I can't even draw stick people?" ( I really can not draw, not anything...it ends up looking like a 5 year old did it!)
So she asked me to come along and "help" when she had a gig at a local Elks Club function. The were having an Easter party for the children and Laura was to do the face painting (so I thought). We get there, she gets out her face painting kit and her balloons, she does balloon twisting also.
When we got inside I asked her how she was going to do both balloon twisting and face painting? Her answer, "Mom...YOU are going to do the face painting". Ok..so now I'm on the spot...200 little kids in line and I've never painted a single face in my life!! Laura had a book with pictures of what she had painted and told me to just "look at the pictures and paint that". So that is what I TRIED to do...but to me they were all ugly when I finished painting them. But the odd thing was...the kids LOVED them! They didnt' care if it wasn't perfect, they just loved that they had something painted on their faces.
That was 7 years ago, and I've been painting faces ever since. I've gotten much better at it and actully enjoy it now. For the first year I did it just because Laura wanted me to, but after that I started to enjoy it.
When I began doing paper piecings and learning to shade and highlight it passed over into my face painting. I love it when the parents tell me how good I am, makes me feel like yes...I'm doing a good job. The best part is the smiles I get when I hold the mirror up for the kids to see what I've done! Even the grumpiest child will grin when they look at thier face, it's amazing.

I did a face painting gig yesterday at a park for a company function and took my camera along to snap a few pics.

Getting started...

Hold still please...lol I've learned to paint a moving canvas!

Add the glitter and there's that smile!

I paint more of these horses than I like to remember, it's a favorite amoung little girls.

Girls and Moms love the flower vines I do.

My very first dolphin! I was afraid to try to paint this one, but she told me "I don't care what it looks like"...so I gave it a try. I thought it turned out pretty good.