More fotos from The Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts street fair, produced by The Kimmel Center, April 30, 2011.
To suit the theme of “Paris 1910-1920” we chose to paint faces based on the artists associated with Paris of that era, ranging from the Impressionists forward to the origins of Modern Art. And we invited the pubic to just sit down and “we will turn you into a work of art” — no requests, every face a surprise.
Dimitrea painting a Picasso inspired image
We have found that people generally like the idea of being surprised by the face we paint on them, and people this time were even more enthusiastic, excited about becoming a work of art. Excited, it seemed, about becoming something exotic and unfamiliar. Over the course of the day, several people engaged me in conversations about how different the facepainting was from what they (or their kids) were used to, and how much they enjoyed this. Our artists enjoyed themselves as well.
Monet Waterlilies
Painting like this, borrowing some of the cache of famous artists like Monet and Matisse, gives a facepainter a greater sense of freedom to be creative, in large part because the people you are painting have given you that permission and have joined you in the creative adventure. Our team for PIFA included Britt, Dimitrea, Jennifer, Miguel and Roberta, and I couldn’t resist doing a little painting too after my storytelling shows were done.
See the previous post for fotos of the faces painted by Britt.
To learn about our company:
here's the display we used for this event
By Jennfer, from Matisse papercut "Icarus"
from a Gauguin painting (see Britt's version in yesterday's post)
Sharks, in a modern Art/Cubist style
We also included some African and tribal images, as they were an influence on artists in Paris 1910
Roberta painting image from a Gauguin painting
By Roberta
By Britt
Picasso inspired, from Dimitrea
from Picasso - Dora Marr
from Matisse papercut: "monkey"
Dimitrea painting
One of the last faces I painted that day, in which I tried to use the colors of his shirt to work the surface of the face in imitation of the complexity Picasso brought to the surface of the canvas in some of his Cubist portraits, such as "Ambroise Vollard, 1910"
Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, Paris, Spring 1910
Related articles
- The Kinetic Art of Face Painting – Pt.1: Sending Art off into the World (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
- First Night Hartford – Face Painting Adults and the Final Faces of 2011 (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
- Face Painting – Kids for Kids Event – Inspirations from Africa and India, including Rangoli (thestorybehindthefaces.com)