UK Face & Body Art Convention 2010

Hello!

It's been a while and I appologise for my lack of posting. The Summer months are always are busiest and it gets a little crazy in the office here at Cats Whiskers!

Now we've almost recovered, I'll do my best to post about the fun we had during teh Summer months and get back to posting regularly about our current adventures.

This past weekend was the UK Face & Body Art Convention in Birmingham. I went up to paint for the Snazaroo team on the Saturday and had a fantastic time. Back in June I did a body painting shoot for them to create an advertsiting image and this design, painted on the stunningly beautiful Rowena Perry and photographed by Simon Webb at Blueskies photography, was used for the programme and on a sketch book & tin full of goodies given to every delegate at the convention. :o)

More soon.
Cheers,
Helen

Cats Whiskers Face Painting
www.catswhiskers.biz

FACE Conference - Monster Award

Last weekend the FACE (Face Painting Association) Conference was held in Dawlish, Devon. The conference starts with the associations AGM and then involves the members in many demos, business seminars and competitions.

On the Friday evening after dinner we have a quiz and play face painting games and I also got to paint my friend and fellow entertainer, Dave Hickory. http://www.davehickory.co.uk/
Dave had spent most of the day creating a stunning Balloon Portcullis.

I was asked to do a demo on Clown's and Jesters - to keep with the weekends theme of the Medieval.

I came second in the Monster Competition which was sponsored by Dauphines of Bristol and received an engraved plate, a certificate and a voucher to go shopping! :)
Thanks for Sam from Charles Fox who was my lovely model!

On the Saturday evening we had a Medieval Gala with amazing entertainment and everyone in costume. Here I am in my Medieval Gown and I also painted Adrian from Snazaroo as an Evil Jester!



On Sunday we painted most of the children who came to the hotel for Mothers Day lunch. This young lady challenged me to paint a goth style face that matched her black, white and teal outfit so we settled for a skelebat design which she was really pleased with.



All in all a fantastic weekend with lots of new ideas shared!

Helen
www.catswhiskers.biz

Face & Body Art International Convention (FABAIC) 2009 Cover Girl!

In 2008 I travelled over to FABAIC in Florida to teach at the convention (See my blog entry about the trip:http://helen-at-cats-whiskers.blogspot.com/2008/06/body-painting-for-bodies-alive-at.html#links) and whilst I was there I took part in a spectacular performance organised by Christopher Agostino. The team I worked with painted seven girls for the "Dragon Dance". (Here's a link to the video of the performance of the Dragon Dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hua8L_tQoto)


Imagine my surprise when in July this year at the World Body Painting Championships in Austria, I bumped into one of the lovely models we'd painted and she mentioned that our photograph with our body painted models had been used for the front cover of the FABAIC 2009 brochure!


So, although the event happened in May of this year, I have finally tracked down a copy of the brochure and here it is!! Click on it to get a bigger view.

Unfortunately I don't know the names of all the models, but the painters are from the left Pam Trent, me, Karen Sawyer, Ginny C, Fairy Emily, Susie Pierce and Katie Hunt.

So, amazingly - I'm a cover girl!! ;)

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Body Painting images from the World Body Painting Championships, Seeboden 2009

The photography awards for the World Body Painting Championships held in Seeboden in July this year have recently been announced (http://193.171.119.147/us/wbpf/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=49942) and several of the photographers have used images of the body paintings that I created there! My thanks to my photogenic and utterly fabulous model - Tina Hörmann.
Photographer: Adam Jean-JacquesPhotographer: Alfonso

Photographer: Samo Trebizan

Photographer: Anthony Thomas

Photographer: Yan Lavallee

Helen

www.catswhiskers.biz

World Body Painting Festival

Between the 17th & 19th July I was lucky enough to be in Seeboden, Austria for the World Body Painting Festival (http://www.bodypainting-festival.com/). It has been going now for over ten years and attracts body painting artists from all over the world, as well as photographers and suppliers. Thousands of spectators also come along to enjoy watching the artists work as well as the stage presentations, music and amazing firework display on the last night.

On Friday the weather was hot as we all worked under canvas on the first day of the brush and sponge competition. It was my first year there and it was an amazing experience - I learnt such a lot. I hadn't realised quite how many people utilised the option of having an "assistant" help them to create their body art, so working on my own I was really pleased to get 46th place.

The theme was "Poetry - the power of words". It’s based on the concept that the power of poetry is the emotional response and being set free into your imagination. There is a play on words with the tree on the back also being the poet – poet-tree.

My model was the very lovely and utterly talented Tina Hörmann from Austria.

We were also included on Bodypaint City TV's Friday highlights:

On Saturday I worked with the Snazaroo team. Snazaroo is a face & body paint manufacturer based in Minehead, UK (http://www.snazaroo.com/) and obviously the Cats Whiskers team use their face & body paint for all our work!!

The weather changed completely in the morning with a huge downpour of rain, so it was a slow start! Some of the competitions that were being held were delayed or did not go ahead quite as planned but after lunch the sun shone, the day warmed up and the festival ground sprung back into life. We had a busy afternoon on the Snazaroo stand and Luc Bec, a talented face painter and Snazaroo reseller from Belgium, and myself had fun face painting on the Snazaroo stand for the festival goers. I even managed to paint a pregnant tummy!! :)

I may not have gotten into the finals of the brush and sponge competition, but I had planned my design so on Sunday I body painted Tina again but this time in the Snazaroo stand as a demonstration. Sunday's theme was "Spirituality - beyond the visible eye". The idea behind it is the third eye and inner spirituality which are represented by the seven chakras. The path of spiritual enlightenment requires balance which is represented by the yin & yang. The white tiger is yin and the green dragon is yang in Chinese teachings.

When we went to the photo area to take photo's taken of the design, Tina was spotted by one of Gigi D'Agostino's stage crew (he is apparently a really huge DJ in Italy!?) and invited to dance on stage whilst he performed!! :)

It was a fantastic weekend where I met loads of old friends from the face & body art world and made some new ones; learnt loads and laughed even more. I'm looking forward to next year!!

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Dragon Dance Video from the Face & Body Art International Convention (FABAIC) 2008

Nearly a year ago I travelled over to Florida to be an instructor at FABAIC and part of the amazing experience I had over there involved taking part in Bodies Alive! This was a performance involving lots of body painting, dance, culture and much more.

I wrote about this soon after I got home: http://helen-at-cats-whiskers.blogspot.com/2008/06/body-painting-for-bodies-alive-at.html

The performance was filmed but soon after the film became lost and we thought we would never see it - however Christopher Agostino, whose idea the show was, has tracked it down and it is now available to see!!!

I was involved in the Dragon Dance team and we had to go onstage during the dance and transform our "peacock" into a dragon. (I'm the one painting the orange model on the left!) Here's the link to the video of the Dragon Dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hua8L_tQoto

Some other clips from the show can be found here:

UV Action Painting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_WFUeJWMNk
Jinny's Singing Faces:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm2UTHVmrCc
Metamorphosis Models:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxalpMqqMog

The singing faces were utterly fantastic and ridiculously funny. :)

I hope you enjoy.
Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Bodys Alive! Video

This blog all started when I returned from FABAIC, Orlando at the end of May last year and decided to share the experience I'd had. Whilst at the Face & Body Art International Convention I had taken part in a body painting show which was the brain child of Christopher Agostino - and it was fantastic!!

Unfortunately the video of the performance has yet to come to light, but this clip of people preparing back stage has been posted on YouTube. It takes me right back there with all the noise and chatter and absolutely staggering art being created.

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kymr_I77d2U

Hope you like it!

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/

SW FACE Jam Day with Henna!

Last Saturday was the regional get together for the Face Painting Association, FACE (http://www.facepaint.co.uk/). Annie Freeman from Annies Funny Faces in Plymouth is the South West rep and she organised a great day with over twenty face painters from the region coming along to meet up, take advantage of the retailers of paint & related products and generally play with paint!! There was also a fantastic goodie bag with face paint and glitter samples amongst a range of other bits and pieces!

I took some Henna down to play and demonstrate with and here are a few of the designs!

It was lovely to meet up with old friends and meet some of the other face painters that work around the region. A good day was enjoyed by all!

It's the UK Face and Body Art Convention (http://www.facepaintingconvention.co.uk/convention/index.php) in Telford in a month (17th - 19th October), so quite a few of us will meet up again there! I'll be teaching at the Convention again this year covering a range of aspects of face painting - from sponge work & brush work to speed and efficiency through to the sparkling party princess!! It's always a great place to go and learn so I'm already looking forward to it!

Helen

http://www.catswhiskers.biz/

Back to School

It's that time of year again where routine is restored and the children resume their studies at school.

A group of entertainers, including myself, also went 'Back to School'. Well, actually we went to QJam! This is an event held in Bristol annually where Qualatex - the balloon manufacturers - host training sessions for Balloon Modellers. We had a great day and much learning and laughter was shared by all.

Here's a picture for Mel - Ozzy in action. ;o)

My daughter loved the new 'Hobby Horse' style Unicorn balloon that I'd learnt!

Best wishes
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/