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Snow Globe Belly Art Step by Step
How are we halfway through December already?! I had something completely different planned for this post, but then they new Practice Board arrived and I needed to try it out! I have already said how much I love the Training Tried and Tested boards, and over the summer I started doing my first belly paints, and have wanted to add the Mother to Be board to my collection ever since, and now I have! I did a couple of pumpkin bellies in the run up to halloween, and I have been dying to do a snow globe for the festive season!
Step 1
I started off by blocking in the tutu and the tree. I used Tag ‘Snake’ one stroke for the tree and Nats Gold Edition ‘Red Fox’ for the tutu, it’s the perfect colour for a Sugar Plum Fairy! For the Tree Trunk I double dipped Superstar Shock complexion and Global Rose Brown on The Face Painting Shop 1 inch Short Angled brush, which I also used for the tree and the tutu
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Step 2
Next I placed my snow globe background colours, Cameleon ‘Victorious’ and Global ‘Pearl Baby Blue) with Tag ‘Pearl White’ in the middle, and also painted in the snow globe base, using Global Rose Brown, Superstar Shock complexion and DFX white. I then outlined everything with DFX black, using TFPS round 6 brush.
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Step 3
Once the background colours were dry, I painted in the legs, chest, head and arms of my Sugar Plum Fairy, using Superstar Shock Complexion. For the hair I mixed Superstar yellow, Superstar Glitter Gold and Superstar Shock complexion together, before using Superstar Rose Gold for the ballet shoes. I then used the TFPS Rounded Flora no 1 brush to outline her and the tree, adding a small line for her eye, and then using a tiny bit of Global Pearl Merlot for her lips.
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Step 4
As I like to work one section at a time, I wanted to finish the details on my sugar plum fairy before moving on to anything else, but you don’t necessarily have to do it at this point. I used DFX black and DFX white for outlining and detailing both on my tutu and on the Christmas tree trunk to add extra before using Superstar Glitter Gold to create the Star at the top of the tree.
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Step 5
Before moving on to the finishing touches, I added my baubles, using Cameleon Victoriuos, Supertasr Plum and Superstar Glitter Gold, and outlining them in DFX Black
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Step 6
To finish everything off, I first highlighted all the baubles and the star before just going crazy with snow. I normally use a toothbrush for this kind of thing, but I wanted bigger dots than you would get with a toothbrush, so I used my TFPS round no 6 brush and DFX white to create the snow, and then the highlights both on the globe and on the base. Because I had already used DFX white for snow, I wanted to add something on top of the snow globe highlights to make sure it was brighter than the snow, so I topped it off with Tag Pearl White for a slightly shimmery effect.
It’s not perfect, if I were to do it again, I would use my airbrush for the highlights (although I’m not going to bring my airbrush on a job just for one thing!), and I would have thought about my sugar plum fairy placement, and being able to make her legs a bit longer because they are a little bit out of proportion, but that’s the great thing about having these boards, you get to make the mistakes at home so you don’t do it in a client situation!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post, I absolutely love doing belly paints, and would love to see any of your creations! Please let me know if you have any questions or if you have anything in particular you’d like me to cover
Mazz x
LONG WEEKENDS, AWARDS & MANAGING FAMILY LIFE
So this week has been pretty epic for me, for two reasons. Firstly, I had an amazing long weekend away with my favourite people, to my favourite place (Donegal, Ireland). I was ready for some serious destressing and it was so good to spend some quality time with my kids, my husband, my dad, and his partner. Secondly, it came as a complete shock to learn that I have been selected as a finalist in the UK wide Mums in Business Awards! This means the world to me, as I’m sure a lot of you know, balancing raising a family while growing a business isn’t easy. In a way, this nomination feels like recognition of both parenting and working! I have a 9 year old daughter, Ruby, and a 17 month old son, Jude, so life is busy! I am aware that lots of painters out there are also juggling a full time job, and you have my utmost admiration for that! Work life balance is hard. Jude is at the age where I take one step forward and three steps back in everything that I do, but I know it won’t be like this forever. He was a much longed for baby, and the process of getting him here wasn’t straightforward, and as he is my last baby, I am conscious of trying to spend every available moment of this precious stage just soaking up his awesomness. However, I still want to nurture and grow my business. At times I don’t get this right, and the balance swings too heavily to the family side, or the business side, and the other side misses out. But ......I am learning about boundaries and their importance in maintaining a healthy balance, and I have made some changes over the last year or so which have really made a difference.
Here are my top tips for creating and maintaining a healthy and happy family life / work balance.
1. CREATE FAMILY TIME
This seems obvious, but it actually took me quite a while to realise that I needed to do this. Sure, I’m around all day, I do both school runs and I don’t use any external childcare. I’m at home with my husband at least four evenings a week. This isn’t the same as ‘family time’ though. While I’m doing all of these things, I’m also responding to messages, booking in jobs, managing deposits and payments, creating and sending invoices, making balloons, and all of the other things that come with running a small business. My mind is often elsewhere and I’m usually doing 23 things at once. I am not fully present. The nature of our business means that our diaries fill up in an unstructured way, sometimes days in advance, sometimes months in advance, and it is so easy to find yourself in a position where you don’t have a weekend day off to spend with your family, for months on end. I now actively block out some days in the diary to spend quality, present time with my little unit.
2. INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY
As I mentioned above, doing 23 things at once is often a slower and more complicated strategy than tackling things one at a time. I am working on becoming more efficient by examining what I need to achieve each week, and planning when I am going to do each thing. For example, I know that trying to use the laptop, paint, or cut vinyl personalisation for my balloon work, are virtually impossible to do while Jude is on the loose. These things are far too interesting for him, and he demands to be an active participant, and, as this makes it stressful for me, I now plan for those things to be done while he naps. This might seem obvious but for me, it has had a really positive impact, as I know exactly what I’m going to be doing for that little 90 min slot each day. I have everything that I need ready to go, and it’s amazing how productive I can be in such a short window of time. I have also dedicated Tuesdays as admin day. All outstanding quotes and invoices are sent on Tuesdays, so I no longer feel overwhelmed by trying to remember everything, and snatching five minutes here and there to try to do things. I leave a little early for the school run and use the time to respond to messages. Again, simply by creating a new habit or routine, you can earmark little bits of time to get things done in a more productive way.
3. LEARN HOW TO SAY NO
When you are self-employed, or running a new / small business is it desperately tempting to take every single job that comes your way. In a lot of ways, it makes sense. We work on word of mouth referrals a lot, so obviously the more work you do, the more referrals come your way. There has to be a limit to this though. Sometimes it’s that one extra gig that pushes you over the edge into being over tired, stressed, and generally fed up. Don’t be afraid to say no to some jobs if they are going to upset your work life balance. There is more to life that making as much money as you can. I’m learning that this doesn’t only apply to work, and learning to say no to any commitment that doesn’t add value to your life or bring you joy is a big step but one that you won’t regret.
4. ORGANISATION ROCKS!
This is relatively new to me. I read the Marie Kondo Book ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ last year, and it really changed my outlook on life. Not only have I massively decluttered and organised the house, but it has also spilled over into other aspects of life. I meal plan, I run a family calendar to keep track of everyone’s activities. I organise uniforms and school bags the night before. I use a ‘to do list’ app to keep me on track, and I have generally streamlined most aspects of life. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of days where the house is a tip and we have McDonalds for dinner, but because we have a system in place now, and so much less junk, the house is much easier to tidy after a busy day of ‘familyness’, and I feel much more in control of everyday life.
5. ME TIME!
It’s the old saying ‘you are no good to anyone if you aren’t good to yourself’. Being a working (self-employed) mum and wife is hard work. It takes its toll and makes its mark on you. If you aren’t careful, it’s easy to become over-tired and run down. This is when you find yourself in a rut - of house work, motherhood and work with no respite. This one is tricky for me at the moment as having a one year old is full on full time, but I live for my Tuesday night bath. Everyone knows that interruptions are only permitted if the house is on fire or someone requires an ambulance! It’s my time to relax, look after myself, and have some head space. Some of my best thinking happens in the bath too, and I always feel 100% better afterwards.
I know that we are fast approaching the silly season and my own diary is absolutely jam packed, so I don’t always practice what I preach, but even little tweaks can make a real difference. Why not make a new year’s resolution to schedule regular family time to make memories and have fun with the ones you love? I promise you will never regret it!
Kathryn x
How to Maximise Profit at a Pay Per Face Event!
I like a good, busy PPF event occasionally. I did plenty of dismal ones when I first started out, might have even cried a bit on the way home after not even making the price of stall fee back. It’s always best to have guaranteed income and be paid your hourly rate but for some events that isn’t an option available. When contacting events always offer hourly first, it’s in all our interest if events willing to pay hourly stay that way. And offering PPF when the event already has a paid painter is bad form. Undercutting benefits none of us. But, with the perfect event I can make over my hourly rate, so I'm passing on to you some of what I’ve learned.
The Type of Event
In order to have a steady/crazy queue of customers waiting to be painted, the event itself has to be well advertised. Search for the event on face-book, look at the numbers of interest people from previous years. If the event is not established then I pass. Even if you’re a new painter and need the practice, you need the event to have people actually there. Look out for banners and posters too. Always ask about duplicate stalls, you don’t want to be splitting your potential clients. When asked to provide a raffle prize just say you offer a service not a product.
Location is important. You need an abundance of kids so school fete’s and fairs are great. Schools are generally more worried about being sued these days so it’s less likely the school will loose their pupils to do the face-painting with some tubes of Smiffys and no hygiene protocol. Community events can be good earners too.
This might just be my experience but Craft and Church fairs can be attended by a more elderly crowd so baring the odd grandchild or up-for-it Nana, your pool of customers is too small to be worth the while.
Stall Fees
The perfect stall fee is ZERO. No risk to you and the event see you as a draw.
The next best deal is a percentage of your takings. It requires some trust between you and the event coordinator, so be upfront about how much float you’re starting with and count takings together at the end of the event. Do not go higher than 20%. I might give a charity 20% if it was a worthwhile cause.
Contrary to thinking too low a stall fee is a bad sign. You turn up and the stall holders are the only people there. That tiny stall fee wasn’t put into advertising. The other end of the market is festivals who can charge over a thousand for a weekend and some have no problem having many glitter/face-painting stalls. Even with inflated per face charge you’d have trouble making back that fee. Some painters say that it’s better to attend and work on the fly, but you didn’t hear that from me as it’s probably illegal.
Your designs
To have a really successful PPF gig, you need to be FAST and GOOD. No more than four minutes total turnaround per design is a good limit. That’s asking which design, taking the money, getting seated, the painting and sending them on their way. To me, a quick design means I don’t pick up the same brush more than once, every brush swap is more seconds on your design.
So you should have a repertoire of under four minute designs on display. I love my 8 mask Sally Anne Lynch board in a poster A2 a-frame. Eight designs I can confidently bang out in a display really stops the umming and erring when the client gets their turn, plus I don’t want to be googling Five Nights at Freddie’s characters when theres a queue of twelve people forming. You can just say “These are the designs I’m doing today”, and being able to diplomatically say NO will stead you well in face-painting and in life. The more people you paint the more money you make so save the super elaborate designs for parties. One strokes and stencils are life-savers. Chunky Festival Glitter is also super quick when applied over Global gel.
On the Day
Rosemary x
Hello again everyone, how are you all doing? Just a quick one from me today! I don’t know about you, but it’s already looking like my December is going to be busier than myOctober! Today I wanted to share a quick set by step for my penguin crown. It’s so simple but I really love this design!
Products used:
Sally-Ann Lynch 4 face A2 board
Petal Sponge
DFX Captain Obvious
The Face Painting Shop Base Brush
Mehron Prisma Cake, Shadow
The Face Painting Shop Short Angled 3/4 inch Brush
Nat Davies Gold Edition Blue Wren
The Face Painting Shop Round No: 6
DFX White
The Face Painting Shop Rounded Flora No: 1
DFX Black
Superstar Glitter Gold
Please let me know if you have any questions, any other designs you’d like to see or any topics you’d like me to write about. If you give this a go I would absolutely love to see it too!
Thanks
Mazz
The Need for Speed
When I first started out face painting, I sought out advice from a very experienced painter in my area, whom is now a great friend. Amongst all of the wonderful advice she gave me, I remember she told me that I should eventually be able to paint around 15 faces an hour. At the time, I was averaging about 15 minutes a face! So was quite overwhelmed
at the thought of being able to paint that quickly, and to a good standard. This week’s blog is about how I built up to that number and my top tips for increasing your speed.
Starting off Small
I ditched my book of designs as I knew that by continually looking at something for reference was slowing me down – this was a big step and pretty scary!! But it gives you lots of freedom too – your client doesn’t know what you are supposed to be painting (eliminating the ‘you’ve missed that bit, I want that bit’), you can vary the design as you like, keeping it really simple if you have a long queue or adding in my detail and embellishments if you wish. My first step was to memorise, REALLY memorise 6 popular designs, and really try and nail those designs. I think I chose a butterfly, tiger, spiderman, flowers, Captain America and a princess crown (If I was learning now I’d almost definitely replace one of those with a unicorn!). I painted my Sally Ann Lynch Tried and Tested board with these six designs and took it to parties, ppf jobs and practiced and practiced. Naturally I got quicker and quicker at these designs.
Build Up Your Repertoire
As my confidence grew I began to add in extra designs – so I’d practice at home the basic steps to creating a design, and then add it to my board. And over time, I added more and more, mixing up the design boards completely, taking multiple boards with me, even bravely taking requests for things I’d never painted before and using my imagination for how they’d look on the face – something I never thought I’d be able to do!
Now I generally don’t use a board to display designs on, unless I’m working at a themed event and have been asked to specially design one – I LOVE working a themed event, and the challenge of thinking up new ideas, and painting something other than unicorns and superheros! However- I still revert to my 6- face choice board if I know I really have some numbers to get through. Last weekend I had a 2 hour party with 45 children to paint, one of the parents managing my queue and a very knackered Kate by the end of it!
Utilise Your Time-Saving Tools
We are lucky to have SUCH amazing products available to us now, splitcakes, one strokes, stencils, all of which make our jobs so much quicker. I utilise these as much as I can on busy jobs to help me to be quick. I love to blend out a face and spend time on a design but there is a time and a place!
I try to remind myself not to be a perfectionist if I’ve got a long line or a very busy party, and I think this is really important if you do want to build up your speed. I don’t mean that you should completely compromise on quality, as it would be soul-destroying to turn out work that you hate – but to try and find a happy medium. Focus on high-impact designs that are simple and quick. You have to remember that members of the public are going to be impressed with your skills even if you don’t add on those five starbursts, and the shading, and the liquid bling etc etc.
So to recap:
TOP TIPS FOR INCREASING YOUR SPEED
Use a display board so children can choose their design ahead of time
If you’re a beginning start with a small selection of designs and memorise them
Use one strokes/stencils/splitcakes to get more ‘bang for your buck’
Keep the designs simple, bright and high-impact
Thanks for reading, I’d love to hear any comments or tips you have on this subject. Next week I’m going to starting CHRISTMAS designs woohoo! Using some gorgeous, glitzy products from The Face Painting Shop.
Kate x
Facebook: www.facebook.com/katesfaces26
Insta: www.Instagram.com/katesfacesfacepainting
Website: www.katesfaces.co.uk
Thanks for reading, I’d love to hear any comments or tips you have on this subject. Next week I’m going to starting CHRISTMAS designs woohoo! Using some gorgeous, glitzy products from The Face Painting Shop.
Let’s talk about instagram, part 2
In part 1 I covered the basics of Instagram and getting started with it. In this post, part 2, I’m going to talk about the business tools, how to make the most of them, and some of the extra features.
How to make your profile a business profile
There are so many benefits of turning your profile into a business profile! It makes it easier for people to get in contact with you, you can promote your posts, and you can get insights and analytics to help show you how your posts are performing, and give you information about your audience. There are a couple of requirements to have a business profile. 1) You have to have 100 followers, and 2) you have to have a Facebook page. This is because Instagram is owned by Facebook, and it uses the information from your Facebook page to fill out your business details for your Instagram page. It then also connects your payment details so that if you choose to promote one of your posts, it already has everything it needs.
So, how do you do it? Go to your profile, and there will be the 3 line menu button in the top right corner. Click that and it opens a small menu, and right at the bottom is a ‘Settings’ button. Open that and it takes you to a really long menu. Scroll down until you get to the ‘Business Settings' section and you should have the option right there.
Insights and Analytics and how to use them
The insights page is split into 3 sections. Activity, Content and Audience. The ‘Activity’ tab shows you a week on week report based on profile visits, website clicks, reach and impressions. It also shows a graph to say which days of the previous week had the most actions taken on your posts.
If you go into the content tab and select ‘see all’ You can see all of your posts ranked by engagement they have received, how many likes, comments, profile clicks, emails, website clicks etc etc your posts have generated. You can also select the time frame that it takes into consideration.
The audience tab shows you a range of graphs including the locations your audience is from, the age range of your audience, the gender of your audience, and at what times or days your followers are most active.
That’s a very brief explanation of the insights page, but there are so many useful things to take from that information, and can really help you to see if you are getting the most from your posts.
Promoting your posts
This is basically a social media ‘advert’. You can pay as little as £3 to ‘boost’ your post, and you can customise your target audience. You can even save this target audience to use again in future promoted posts. This is such a great tool because you might want to change your target audience depending on your ad, wether you are promoting maternity art, a glitter bar for a wedding or face painting for a children’s party. You can then also tweak these settings depending on if the ad is getting you the results you wanted or not. You also then receive insights as to how much of your engagement has been generated by the promotion vs the organic reach (people who would have seen and interacted with your post without the paid promotion). Just be careful when you are choosing a post to promote though. I have had a promotion cancelled in the past because there was too much text on the image itself, and photo’s with lots of text or ‘clutter’ don’t perform as well on social media as ‘clean’ images. This is something instagram automatically did rather than me choosing to end the promotion, so just keep that in mind!
Business Hashtags
I talked in part 1 about using hashtags, and making the most out of them, as well as supporting other face painters by engaging with their posts. Business hashtags are another great way of expanding your reach and supporting other local businesses who in turn might support you. Working with local businesses can be really beneficial to both parties, and social media can often be the first point of contact for this, you could discover loads of local businesses you didn’t even know existed! I know of a couple of hashtags around where I live. We have ‘#Sheffieldissuper’ (which started off as a twitter page, retweeting a lot of the content they were tagged in) and ‘#Southyorksbiz’ which literally reposts everything it has been hashtagged in, which has it’s pro’s and cons. It might take a little bit of time to find relevant local business tags, but once you have found them, they can be really beneficial!
Keeping your profile relevant to what you do
For me, this is a biggie. I have 4 separate instagram accounts. 4. I keep each area of my business separate, and then I have a personal account too because, as much as I love my dogs, and as much as I think they are the most gorgeous, idiotic, lovable creatures ever, my clients might not. Having a separate personal account also allows me to follow other accounts unrelated to work without my business newsfeeds getting clogged up with cakes, other people’s dogs, and pictures of forest floors and mountains. I’m not saying that if you are a face painter and a glitter tattoo artist that you necessarily need a separate account for each service, they are complimentary services that you would probably perform together at the same gig. For me though, if I have someone looking me up for face painting at a children’s birthday party, they’re probably not interested in the bridal hair and makeup I did the other day, and equally if I’m being considered for a fashion shoot or a film, they might be put off by the face painting. You also need to consider your marketing strategy, especially who your target market is, and if it is the same for each area of your business. That being said, there are a few people that actually do follow all 4 of my accounts (although these are mostly my family and close friends), as well as those who only want to see images from one of my accounts and that’s fine! It’s totally up to them.
Instagram stories
Instagram stories is a relatively new feature, entirely stolen from snapchat, and is now also a feature on Facebook. It’s a another way to engage with your followers and increase your exposure. For me, it’s where I post more sort of behind the scenes stuff that I don’t want on my main profile. Live videos can be great for engaging with your audience, as is captioning and hash tagging your stories, which can also then include your story in the main story for that hashtag. To add to your story, go to your newsfeed (or your profile), and on your logo there will be a little + button which you need to click. From there you can decide wether you want to add a video, a boomerang or just a quick photo to your story.
User Generated content
Personally, I am rubbish at remembering to take photo’s while I’m on the job. It can be really hard, especially if it’s a busy event, to find the time, and to find the time when you have done a really good paint rather than when you’ve been stuck with a wriggler for the last 10 minutes! A really good way of generating photo’s of your work other than taking them yourself, is to encourage people who have been painted by you, or whose children have been painted by you to tag you in any pictures they post of it on Facebook or Instagram. These can then be re-shared to your profile, and you can tag the person who originally posted it, and thank them for it! As well as building your exposure, this is a good way of making sure you are totally, 100%, completely GDPR compliant.
Sometimes there might also be professional photographers at the events you are painting at. Photographers are your best friends! I have been sent some really lovely photos of my work from events where there has also been a photographer, and it’s also a great networking opportunity.
Taking into account your own social media habits
The last thing I want to talk about today is your own social media habits. What makes you want to interact with someone else’s post, what makes you want to unfollow someone? Think about this and then apply it to yourself. Imagine you are a potential client, and be really honest with yourself. Are you posting engaging content? Are you posting at a time that your target audience is going to be using instagram? Morning breaks, lunch breaks, and just after dinner (and by dinner I mean evening meal, NOT lunch!) are the times I have found most effective for me to post during the week.
And the other last thing is this. Just remember that in general, we only post what we want other people to see. People constantly say to me ‘Ooh Mazz, you look like you’re doing really well, you always look busy’. That’s because that’s what I want people to think. There are times where I am really busy, but equally there are times where I am sat at home wondering what I’m going to do with myself. We know social media is bad for our mental health for this reason, so remember to take everything you see online with a pinch of salt.
I hope you have found my instagram blog posts useful and that you have managed to take something away from them. I would love to know if you have tried anything I have talked about and hear if you have found it has changed anything for you! Please also let me know if you have anything in particular you want me to talk about in future posts!
Mazz x
Hi Everyone! I hope that you have all enjoyed the rest week between Halloween finishing and the Christmas jobs starting! The season starts for me on Saturday, with a ‘switching on of the lights’ event, and I am both horrified that it’s not even December yet, and yet really looking forward to the Christmas tunes! With this event in mind, I have created a little video showing three super easy one stroke Christmas doodles. These are great for faces and arms alike and are really easy to recreate. Enjoy!
Products Used
These designs were painted on a Sally-Ann Lynch TTT Large practice board.
Reindeer
Tag Teddy Bear One Stroke
Superstar 040 Pinky Red
DFX White
DFX Black
TFPS Pink Tip short ¾” flat brush
Loew-Cornell Gold Grip size 2 brush
TFPS Pink Tip round size 3 brush
TFPS Aurora glitter
Christmas Tree
Tag Leaf Yellow One Stroke
TFPS Pink Tip short ¾” angled brush
Loew-Cornell Gold Grip size 2 brush
Global Neon Rainbow Cake
DFX White
Superstar 024 Chocolate Brown
TFPS Aurora Glitter
Snowman
Tag Magpie One Stroke
TFPS Pink Tip short ¾” angled brush
TFPS Pink Tip round size 3 brush
Loew-Cornell Gold Grip size 2 brush
DFX Black
DFX White
Global Red
Superstar 033 Orange
TFPS Aurora Glitter
Kathryn x
Festive Foliage step-by-step
Excited for Christmas? In our house we don’t decorate till after my husband’s December birthday so I have to fit all my festive fantasy into my face-painting. I’ve seen lots of holly berry tutorials this week but I want to show you a couple of other wintery wonders to pepper into your designs. I’ve also done a time lapse so you can see how to bring variations of these elements together into an eye design.
Yew Berries
I’ve got complicated feelings about yew berries. Last year my three year old picked up and ate some from a playground floor. The berries themselves aren’t poisonous but the little seed in the centre of each, are. After a day in A&E under monitoring he was given the all clear.
So they are dangerous but beautiful. I used TAG Leaf White one-stroke for the foliage. You simply tap the flat of your brush straight down to create each needle. That’s the chisel edge stroke. It’s a good move to have in your repertoire. The spray of needles are delicate and need to be given space in a design to be recognisable. The black seed of each berry should look away from each other. They aren’t as glossy as holly berries so no need to highlight, you can outline if you choose/have time to.
Pine cones
To add a little more interest to your designs, pine cones can be used as a feature. I take Global Rose Brown and either make round egg type shapes or little fat sausages. Once they are reasonably dry, take a well worn brush and layer/crisscross with more chisel strokes to create the seed segments. Christmas is a great time to be using older brushes. They add texture. I use one of the first filberts I ever got for little dabs of chunky glitter. And older round brushes used with a wetter paint make fantastic dots and circles for berries. To finish off the pine sprigs I add irregular sprays of TAG Leaf White again. Using the same chisel stroke but back and forth to make more variation in the length of the needles.
To finish, top things sporadically with little banks of white. Be subtle with this snow effect as you don’t want to cover up all the lovely painting you’ve just done. And as always, it’s not complete without glitter. I used some TFPS chunky glitter in “Champagne”.
Training Tried and Tested, a Review
Practice makes perfect, it’s a well known fact. We learn through making mistakes, appraisal and creating muscle memory. When I started face painting, I printed out a face chart and laminated it and that’s how I practiced, but the plastic is far too smooth, and the colours don’t show very well. After a few months (I don’t know why I waited so long) I bought myself the Sally-Ann Lynch Training Tried and Tested A4 practice face and it made a HUGE difference.
Sally-Ann Lynch has worked so hard to create and produce these practice boards, and by now, I’m close to having the full set. They take paint so well, they’re easy to clean and they look beautiful when they’re all painted up with designs at events, and make it so easy for people to choose designs. I actually punched holes in the top corners of my boards to hang from my Gazebo at festivals, and to hang from the arm of my painting chair when I go to events.
I was so excited when I opened this months bloggers box and found the male torso board and a Pink Tip Triangular brush inside. I have a really big wedding fayre this weekend and alongside face painting, I am promoting a ‘Something Different’ Body Painting Hen Do, and it was the perfect excuse to put both the board and the triangular dagger brush to work. The Triangular Dagger Brush is PERFECT for tiger stripes, I love how crisp you can make those lines! I also used some of the Dupe Pigment in Copperline for a little bit of extra definition and shimmer in the shadowed areas, as well as my Da Vinci number 14 brush for those really big tiger stripes.
I also have the female torso and the back torso, and in the lead up to the world body painting festival this summer, these are what I used to practice my design. They are a great size to practice on, and it really gives you an opportunity to visualise your design.
Those designs have been on those boards since June, and the paint hasn’t budged until I washed it off yesterday morning, but didn’t take any effort to wash off when I needed to. They have both now also been repainted for this weekend.
So as well as the A4 face board, the 12 face board, the female front torso, the back torso, and the male front torso, I also have the A4 black board to display things like pricing, little notices, advertising bits and pieces etc etc. I absolutely love the way colour shows up on this board, especially one strokes. The only thing I would say is that I have found it a little harder to clean off than the clear boards, but once you’ve painted back over it, you can hardly tell.
Nothing is ever going to be as good as real skin to practice on, but I would argue that these boards are better to practice on than real people. They don’t squirm when you bring a brush near their face, they don’t move unexpectedly, they don’t need to pee, they don’t need to sleep, you can take as much time with these boards as you like without worrying about how long they have been stood up. You can get a realistic idea of how your design is going to look, and it’s so easy to wipe something off and change it if you don’t like it.
I really hope this has been useful to you. As you can tell, I am a big fan of these boards, and plan to keep adding to my collection. Please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions!
Mazz x
PAW PATROL STEP BY STEPS BY JANE HARDING
Hi There!
Thanks for dropping by and having a look at my/our blogs, we all really appreciate you taking the time to read and watch every week, so thank you all for your ongoing support.
I am sure some of you out there are aware or have seen the 4 Paw Patrol Step By Steps (SBS’s) I created earlier this year. I am aware they have been shared across Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. I’ve also received so many lovely comments about them and how they have “saved the day” for a couple of people on the job who quickly needed a Paw Patrol design. Honestly, hearing comments like this made my day, it really is the reason I made them. I have learnt so much from all the great face painters out there sharing their work on Social Media, so I love that I can return the favour.
Originally I created SBS’s for Chase, Marshall, Skye & Rubble and I lost count how many times people have asked me to complete the set by creating SBS’s for Rocky & Zuma. The wait is finally over, I have made them and you can find them all here for the first time!
As you will see, I created each one of these designs on a Sally-Ann Lynch Training Tried and Tested Board. Having used these boards since I started face painting almost 2 years ago, I can highly recommend them. I don’t have my own children to practice on and I struggle to paint my own face because I am VERY short sighted, so I find these boards invaluable for me to practice. I would also suggest using them as I have done here repeating the same design over and over, this helps tremendously with muscle memory (which helps speed) and just remembering the designs when you don’t have a picture. The more often you do something the easier and quicker it is to paint and remember!
Below each SBS I will list all the paints and brushes I used and finally some tips about adapting them when you need to be super quick… Enjoy!
CHASE
BRUSHES USED:
PRODUCTS USED:
MARSHALL
BRUSHES USED:
PRODUCTS USED:
SKYE
BRUSHES USED:
PRODUCTS USED:
RUBBLE
BRUSHES USED:
PRODUCTS USED:
ROCKY
BRUSHES USED:
PRODUCTS USED:
ZUMA
BRUSHES USED:
PRODUCTS USED:
NEED TO PAINT THEM REALLY FAST?
My biggest tip to create these in super quick time would be to leave out the base/face colours. Literally just paint the hat/goggles, ears and nose.
This still makes the character super recognisable and looks really cute. When I have tried this OTJ, I still had time to outline but if you are really struggling for time you could leave that off too. Personally I would choose to outline and leave off the highlights, but ultimately, leaving off the base colour really does save a lot of time.
And that is it! I hope they have been worth the wait for some of you and that they continue to help a few people out there.
As always leave any comments in the box below and if you would like to see more designs from me, give me a FOLLOW AND SUBSCRIBE on my social media platforms… links below.
Jane x
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