Fun in the Park - St Andrews Park, Bristol

I've just got back from working at Fun in the Park held in St Andrews Park in Bristol. It was actually a perfect day weather wise, not to sunny to have to worry about sun burn but not too cold either! There were loads and loads of people there with their children so the event was a real success. Our friend Dave Hickory was there balloon modelling and he did a show. There were lots of other things organised for the children to do as well from crafts to music classes, etc.. I had the Police Car near me that kept letting off the syren!! LOL! Useful when you are face painting. :o)

Needless to say, I was SO busy! I've just counted my sponges (I use one sponge per face for hygiene reasons which also means I can tally up at the end of the day and see how many faces I did!), and I did 70 faces in four hours!!! That's fast work - just under 3.5 minutes per face including them getting in and out of the chair, making a decision and looking in the mirror. LOL!! I ran out of business cards after two hours, so they must have been reasonable faces too. :o)

Obviously I didn't have time to take any photographs but here's one I did on my son last night whilst I was looking at ways to adapt faces so that children can have great designs but not have paint around their eyes if they don't want to.

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

WINDY!!

So, the weather didn't turn out quite as badly as predicted this weekend, but it was incredibly windy!!!! Several of the jobs we did involved getting parents to hang onto the legs of the gazebo for fear of it blowing away! LOL!!

Everyone enjoyed themselves despite of the weather, and here are a couple of pictures from Sharon from Pants in the Park.

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Wet Weather and Face Paints

With another damp and dreary weekend forecast, a number of the Cats Whiskers team will be enjoying themselves out and about under our bright orange gazebos, hopefully in some sunshine but more likely in the rain!!

This weekend we are at the following public events, so you can come along to get your face painted or arm tattooed! On Saturday Cats Whiskers face painting artists will be set up on New Cheltenham Road, Kingswood for a Community Flat Open Day and on Sunday there will be a team in Bath at the Holburne Museum for their Summer Fair.

Lets hope it's not as cold and wet as the last Bank Holiday in May!! Here is a picture of Michelle working on that weekend, under cover in the rain - but still happily face painting! LOL!


Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Face Painting Speed Training night

Last night was another of our team training nights. Six of the team attended and we had a bit of a giggle doing timed faces and setting challenges to improve our awareness of our speed and the areas that we need to work on.

Here we are after the Dalmatian painting challenge!

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Face Painting fun

Another busy weekend in the face painting calendar. Lots of events and parties to attend! The girls went to a Music Festival and had a really busy time of it! Solid painting for five hours!! The sun came out and so did the people - which is always great for the face painters.

I was booked to face paint at Holly's birthday party. I started face painting at this families parties when Holly was three and I've been to a few of her sisters parties too so it's wonderful to see how the girls are growing up and catch up on their news.


They also know me well enough to know that they can request anything and I'll give it a go!! This year the girls wanted dolphins - not ones with waves, or a dolphin princess, but something new just for them! Here's what I came up with:

Here's Holly's sister:

Here's a black cat requested at the second party I did.

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Busy week - Training Workshops and Pregnant Tummy Painting

It's been a busy week so far - which is how we like them!!

I started the week in Birmingham running a face painting workshop for the Heartlands Hospital Information Team. They do a lot of promotional activities for the hospital and health services in the local community and were looking for an activity to attract people to their promotional stand.

The four ladies who joined me were certainly game for a laugh and were very enthusiastic to learn which made the day really enjoyable.



They picked face painting up very quickly too, so I'm sure it's a skill they'll continue to develop in their work to promote healthy living and the services on offer.


This photo made me smile - there's nothing like seeing happy puppies painting!! LOL!

Yesterday I was booked to do a pregnant tummy painting for a lovely couple who were having a photo shoot. They wanted something simple and settled on a rose. I'm quite pleased with how this one turned out. The photographers pictures will obviously be much better than this!

So now to catch up on the paperwork and tasks that I should have been doing!!

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Congratulation to Len - She's had a baby girl!

Len, one of the Cats Whiskers team, has finally had her baby today! Jon and Len's daughter was born 12:36am weighing 7lb 4oz. So congratulations to them all and we're looking forward to meeting the new addition.

Here's a picture of one of the many bump paintings that we were able to do whilst Len was pregnant!

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Sparkling with Glitter Tattoos

Friday night I did a job for an agency at a Graduate Ball. The description for what I was supposed to be doing was a little "loose", so I took face paints, temporary tattoos and glitter tattoos just to be on the safe side.

In the end, I spent the whole evening doing Glitter Tattoos. I don't think that I've ever had a job where they have been so popular!! Even better than that, they wanted freehand designs - which are by far my favourite way to work.

A team of us did a festival yesterday. Finally the UK weather was fantastic and there was a great turnout. We were offering face painting, temporary tattoos and henna and were constantly busy the whole time we were there! Hence there are no photographs - I didn't get to look up once! Shame really because I did some lovely henna work that I would have liked a record of.

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Promotional Body Painting for Donation Station - Cancer Research UK

Sharon from Cats Whiskers has been in the papers again! She made it into the Bath Chronicle for her part in the Cancer Research UK Donation Station launch in the Podium Shopping Centre.


She only had an hour to paint the logos onto two tummy's. We were sent the designs in advance so that we could cut the stencils which obviously cut down the application time and kept the logos entirely accurate!



Here's a close up of the Donation Station one - it's a four part stencil which can be fun to match up but it looks really effective! The male model who was booked for the event didn't show up on time (he was nearly two hours late when he finally showed up!!), so one of the organisers went on a hunt for suitably 'buff' male members of the public to be a model and this guy took on the challenge!! Good for him! LOL!














Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Wounds Training Night

It was a team training night tonight and we were recapping on bruising, wounds and general gore for the newer members of the team.





Here's a slashed wrist by Michelle!

And here's a burn that I did on my hand.

Great fun had by all!!

Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

How to create a Glitter Tattoo video

This is my first dabble at 'How To' videos and as I'm preparing for a Glitter Tattoo gig this weekend it seemed a good time to try out the idea!

Glitter tattoos are really popular, especially with teens. Here's one I did of a tribal dragon.

Assisted by Sharon, we came up with the following instructional video.

Enjoy!

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Body Painting for Bodies Alive! at FABAIC

Whilst I was at FABAIC in Orlando, Florida, I had the opportunity to take part in Bodies Alive! This was a collaboration between the 30 or so instructors at FABAIC with models, dancers and performers to perform a show originally conceived and brought to life by Christopher Agostino.

Christopher Agostino is the author of an excellent book called Transformations and investigates all forms of body art specifically the tribal and cultural aspect of it. He specialises in performance art and combines his face and body art with story telling. (http://www.agostinoarts.com/)

The Bodies Alive! show was performed for the Gala Diner of the FABAI convention on the Sunday night after only two days rehearsals! What I got to see of it though was amazing and I can't wait for it to come out on DVD!!

The images here show me painting my model, who was part of the Peacock / Dragon dance group. The idea was that they had a peacock painted on their back and just a stripe or yellow and green on their fronts. They went out on stage and did half of their routine and then we joined them on stage. They stood with their backs to the audience displaying the peacock design whilst we painted scales, claws and curls. Then when they all turned around as a team they had transformed into a Chinese Dragon. Here they all are in the painting room with 'Fire' who was performing in a different section of the show.

One of the other teams were painting the 'Nuba dancers' who were dancers from the Nao Dance Company. They were excellent and for many it was their first time being body painted! All of their designs were geometrical in black and white. They did a fantastic dance at the beginning of the show which had a distinctly tribal beat which then transformed into a rock song! Once that dance was over they ran backstage and we were ready with UV paints to decorate their white areas so that they could go back on later in the show under only black light and do another routine. Their black areas completely disappeared and the effect was fantastic. Like I say, roll on the release of the DVD!!


Finally, at the end of the show a model came on to represent "Art Gone Wild" which is the title of next years Face and Body Art International Convention. All of the artists involved in the production had added a design to her as the afternoon of painting had progressed and then Pat and Susie had brought it all together with some curls and swirls!

I managed to get a Cats Whiskers cat design onto her leg, which amused me!! It just happened that as I was painting a model orange it was the first design that came into my head. LOL!




All in all, it was an amazing experience to be part of. I really had fun and got to work with some amazingly talented and lovely people.

Helen
http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Face and Body Art International Convention (FABAIC) 2008

I'm back home and almost recovered after my trip to Florida to visit FABAIC 2008 which was held 21st - 25th May in Orlando. (http://www.fabaic.com/fabai_home.html)

I was invited to be an instructor by the convention organiser, Marcella Murad (Mama Clown). She had attended a workshop I gave at the UK Face and Body Art Convention (http://www.facepaintingconvention.co.uk/convention/index.php) in 2006 on how to face paint Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and then asked me to go to FABAIC and run the workshop there!

Here's a picture from 2006 of Len and Sharon face painted as a Power Ranger and TMNT!! They were great models.

Obviously with almost two years passed I had to update what I offered so we did the latest Power Rangers, which in the US is Jungle Fury, Iron Man and a TMNT with a full mouth grin so that it could be adapted for The Hulk. Marvel are getting a lot of their charactors on the screen at the moment and us face painters have got to keep up! LOL!

I did a demo session as well which was about using light to create depth and dimension in bases. I wasn't sure how that one had gone, but a few people came up to me afterwards and were really enthused about the ideas I'd presented, so I'm hopeful that the class was useful.

Whilst I was at the convention I got to jam in the body painting room with my new friend Paola Paredes-Shenk (http://www.a-1partyartists.com/). We created a star gazer lily inspired design on a gorgeous model who was one of the attendees of the convention. I worked on the lilies whilst Paola created the flowing background. This was one of the highlights of the convention for me as I'm always happiest when I'm painting and creating - especially in good company!

One of the other highlights was taking part in the Bodies Alive! production which was created and directed by Christopher Agostino and his wife Lorraine. I'll write more about that soon!

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/