Sharon's a Finalist!!

Sharon has once again made it into the finals of the SNAZAROO Halloween Free for All!!

Here is her 'Crop Circle Princess' face painted entry:


Results should be known at the beginning of next week!!





I managed to get an Honourable Mention for one of my entries. :)
This is the latest Power Rangers mask - Jungle Fury! We'll be putting this one in the face painting design book for next year! LOL!

Helen
www.catswhiskers.biz

In the wars.... That's Star Wars!!

We get to meet the most amazing people when we work and this weekend was no exception.

I was face painting and balloon modelling at a store launch for a local toy company in Weston Super Mare this weekend. It was a great day and they had five Star Wars characters along for the day to promote the launch. It caused a huge amount of attention and it wasn't just the children who were excited to see them and have their picture taken!! Needless to say I was busy creating light sabres from balloons and face painting Darth Maul and the Storm Troopers!!



Makes a change from Rudolf at this time of the year. ;)



Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Our Christmas party

The Cats Whiskers team got together this week for our team Christmas curry!! We descended on the fantastic Tamarind Indian Restaurant for our celebration, much to the surprise of the staff as some of us were face painted for the evening!! LOL! Well, it would have been rude not to!

Here's Sharon as a Christmas cat:


Me sporting a Celtic-ish design:



And Michelle, who won the box of chocolates for best design on the night for her ice queen - the photo doesn't really do the design justice!!


Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Father Christmas at Sainsburys

Father Christmas came to Sainsburys Emersons Green today and Sharon & Michelle were ready to welcome him with some face painting and balloon modelling.

















Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Beedle the Bard launch

We may have been a bit quiet on the Blog - but we've been very busy out and about spreading smiles with face painting and balloon modelling in the past few weeks!

On Thursday the long awaited Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling was launched and Borders Books held a party to celebrate. We went along to face paint and here are some of the pictures taken:











Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Christmas Penguin Cheek Art design step by step

Last week the Cats Whiskers Face Painting team got together for our monthly training night and we focused on Christmas Cheek Art - as it is the season!

Here's a step by step for a Christmas Penguin using Snazaroo face paints:



Step 1: Using white, start with two petal shapes next to each other for the eye area and then extend the body down. Add a white line just above the eyes for the base of the hat and remember the ball on the end!

Step 2: Using red, fill in the hat area.

Step 3: Using yellow or orange add the beak. Then create the feet by overlapping three petal shapes.












Step 4: Using black, outline the white body and add wings.













Step 5: Using black and a fine brush, outline the details and add eyes.














Once you have the general idea of creating a penguin you can have some fun with the design, as shown in this design by the talented Nina Faye!

Best wishes
Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Women's Enterprise Day - Wednesday 19th November 2008

Yesterday was Women's Enterprise Day which is part of Enterprise Week 2008. Here's a link if you're interested. :) http://www.enterpriseweek.org.uk/

I was invited along to Patchway Community College to speak with a group of female GCSE and A-level students who were taking Business Studies qualifications. There were three other female entrepreneurs and a representative from Business Link on the panel and we spent about an hour and a half discussing our business stories and answering questions from the group.

It was a really enjoyable afternoon and I hope that the girls who attended learnt a bit about business in the "real world". There was one girl in particular who was very enthusiastic about setting up her own business, which was fantastic to see!

Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Our first Christmas Face Painting jobs of the year and a few new designs

It's Christmas! Well, almost. With only five weeks to go now until the big day, we've dusted off the Christmas face painting designs and cheek art and launched them onto the unsuspecting public. :)

Len and Nina did our first official Christmas face painting job in Thornbury on Saturday for the switching on of the lights at the shopping centre. They were really busy so didn't take any photos to share (or that's their excuse!) I was face painting at an Autumn Fair and had my first request for Rudolf!! I have to admit that I wasn't quite prepared for it and didn't have the Christmas designs with me, so I did the best I could from memory - it was pretty close, but here's what I was aiming for. Can you believe that I almost forgot to do a red nose!!? Duh!


The Autumn Fair was really great fun and very busy. I was volunteering for my children's school so I knew a lot of the children there. I'd taken along a few sketches of designs I'd like to try out and a few of the children were happy to let me give them a go. Here are some of the results:


This is a dolphin princess design I've been working on. The original had some pink in it to lift the colours a bit but this young lady didn't want any pink, which makes a change. LOL!


Here's a horse face painting design. I quite like this and it could be adapted easily for a full face design of a unicorn.


This was the dragon mask that we played with at the last training night. The little boy wanted a red dragon and I like the colours that he chose.

Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

A face painting funny to make you smile on a dull Monday!

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Face painting and Balloon modelling for Children in Need

Tonight is the second anniversary of one of my two World Records!! In 2006 I went to the BBC in Birmingham and took part in a 4 hour face painting team world record attempt, which we achieved. :)

The full title on the award says, 'The record for the most faces painted in four hours was achieved by a team of five independent face painters sponsored by Snazaroo Ltd., who painted a total of 1071 different faces, using a minimum of three colours per face, as part of Children in Need held at BBC Birmingham on 17th November 2006.'


This year (and last year) we face painted and balloon modelled for one of the call centers in Bristol that was accepting donations from those wonderful people who call in to give their money to Children in Need. It's always a good night and the atmosphere is wonderful.


Here is some of the face paintingand balloon modelling we did:














Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Join Friends of Cats Whisker Face Painting on FaceBook!!

Are you a friend of Cats Whiskers Face Painting?? We certainly hope so!!

If you'd like to show it, come along and join our facebook group:

Friends of Cats Whiskers Face Painting

See you there!!
Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Face Painting Workshops and staff face painting training night

We had great fun joining the children at the holiday club in Pill for a Face Painting Workshop. The primary aged chilrden were given masks to paint and shown how to apply paint using a sponge and brush. There were a range of step by step designs as well as a sheet of tribal designs from around the world which they could adapt or copy to create their own unique designs. Here are some of the face painting designs they came up with:












We also had a Cats Whiskers staff face painting training night recently and tried out a few new face painting design ideas. Michelle had a web butterfly mask type design painted on her, Sarah was a tribally vampire and Jo had a dragon mask.

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

New blogging application!

If you're interested in face painting and balloon modelling - or just interested in keeping up to date with the antics of the Cats Whiskers Face Painting team - you can now become a Follower of this blog. On the left hand side of the page there is a Followers section and you can click the link to be added in and be kept up to date with all our news. :)

Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Halloween face painting step by steps

It's getting close to Halloween and it's time to dust off those face paints and give your children a scary face paint for trick or treating!!

A face painting friend, Cindy Trusty (http://www.cindyscc.com/), has just done a series of step by step face painting designs for her local newspaper in Minneapolis, USA which I thought might be useful for anyone looking for design ideas!

It's called Last minute artful Halloween tricks and shows step by steps of a cat face paint design, a pirate face paint design, a vampire face paint design and a butterfly face paint design.


If you don't want something that completely covers the face, how about a pumpkin princess as modelled by Izzy?

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

UK Face and Body Painting Convention

The UK Face and Body Painting Convention was held in Telford this year and had over 100 delegates attending. The vendors room was well stocked and we came home with some new products to try out!

I taught several sessions this year. Firstly on Friday I taught a session on Sponge techniques and using those techniques to create different designs on a face, such as scenery or eye designs. Note to self - don't try a completely new design in public when you're trying to teach something! It doesn't work. LOL!

Friday night was quite relaxed with lots of chatting in the bar. Nina brought Henna with her from an earlier class and Jo did a design on Nina's back.

On Saturday I did a body painting on the lovely Rowena. This time I turned her into an elf. :)

Then in the afternoon I taught a class on brush strokes and how to use them to create quick party princesses!

I did quite a fun evil princess face painting design on a gentleman in the class - but didn't get a picture. :(

Saturday night is party night at the convention and this year the theme was Hollywood and the Oscars. We all got dressed up in our party gear! Jo looked particularly fabulous!!

Sharon had a beautiful eye design created for her by Erica:

On Sunday I taught a class on improving your speed and efficiency whilst still providing that WOW! factor in face painting.

Then unfortunately it was all over again for another year!!

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Competition updates

The UK Face and Body Painting convention is now over and we've all just about recovered!!

These are some of my face painting and body painting entries to the Americana themed competitions. Unfortunately none of them won but I'm proud of them anyway!

We've also had the results from the Snazaroo Summer Free for All for face & body art. Sharon and I received Honourable Mentions - which was brilliant considering the talent of the people we were up against. To be honest I was just really pleased to make it into the Finalists!

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

The Evening Post Article

The press release about the body painting made it into the Evening Post on Friday whilst we were away at the convention and I've finally got my hands on a copy! LOL!



Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

We're in the Western Daily Press today!

Last week I did a body painting on a wonderful lady called Jo on behalf of Cancer Research UK. She was body painted with the latest t-shirt design for the "All girls together" campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness.

Today the article and a picture of the body painting made it into the Western Daily Press. We've both been interviewed today and hopefully there will be a bigger feature in next Wednesday's edition too. :)

Here's one of the original pictures from the session, taken by Simon from Blue Skies Photography. (http://www.blueskiesphotography.co.uk/)




Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Face painting - more pictures!

Where has this week gone!?? It seems to have flown by!!

Here are a few pictures from the week:

As you can see we've been busy! The face paint designs are by Jo and Helen from events at the weekend and the painting skulls were part of our group workshop held on Sunday.

Today is the last day of voting for the Summer Free for All competition - but as it's the UK Face and Body Art Convention tomorrow, I guess that the results won't be announced until next week now! Never mind. I'm REALLY looking forward to the convention - as are Jo, Sharon and Nina from the Cats Whiskers team who will be joining me there!!

This weekend we also have a team face painting and balloon modelling at the launch of the Chelsea Building Society branch in Bristol. Go along and say 'Hi' if you are in the area.

Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/