Face and Body Art International Convention — FABAIC 2011: Pt. 1 Classes and Bodypainting Preparations

My demonstration model, painted for the Dayglo and Metallics class at FABAIC 2009

Getting set for FABAIC in Orlando this week. I have two classes to teach, sponsored by Kryolan:

Kids always rememberthe day when their paremts got painted

Facepainting Adults – the How and the Why

Looking at the roster of classes, I wanted to offer something that was less of a “how-to” class and more of a “why” class. The twenty year success of my New York company has depended in large part on our development of adults as participants. At our Bronx Zoo concession and all of our events we put a big effort into getting the adults to sit down and get painted along with their kids. Getting adults involved increases your income potential – but more than that, it elevates your act. It’s the adults that book the parties, if you get them involved and give them a fantastic experience they remember you and the bookings come. Painting adults is an opportunity to show off, draw a crowd and generate excitement. This is a workshop in how to get the adults to get painted, what to paint on them and why you want to do it.

painting adults gives you a chance to show off, people will notice their faces more than the kids you paint.

Whenever possible, paint Grandpa, the birthday boy loves it

Metallics, Interferenze and Dayglo  —Specialty Makeups to add instant pop to everyday faces – Hands-on Class

A hands-on and very practical class in how to use specialty makeups from basic application and tricks of technique to design concepts like how to get the most out of your metallics, how to make Dayglo designs look good in regular and UV light and how to get the maximum effect with minimal makeup expense. I’ll demonstrate some real special uses such as Dayglo bodyart design for club events – though the primary focus will be on how to incorporate specialty makeups into regular face and body designs and everyone will get a chance to paint and try products. For this class I will be painting a model beforehand as a menu of techniques and effects, then I’ll use that model in the class to describe application methods, demonstrate some of those ideas live and then let everyone get their hands on some product and try it on each other. Bring your painting tools.

student work in my 2009 class

student work in my 2009 class

Bodypainting at FABAIC

Between classes, demonstrations and the jam sessions, FABAIC presents opportunities to do fully realized body paint designs and also to experiment. I bring sketches and images for more designs than I need, so I can adjust to the models I will be working with and to the time constraints. And I have learned over the years to be open to improvisation. There is less control in the painting process, and especially the photography, than I have in studio sessions at home, so I can paint more for the joy of the art than for the expectation of producing a specific fine art image. There is also an encouraging sense of camaraderie and mutual appreciation of everyone’s work. I might have felt the need to be competitive about what I painted in earlier years, but given the level of world class, award winning talent at these events I’ve come to see there is no point to that and gotten much more comfortable painting to my own artistic goals. If you are attending, I recommend that you paint someone there — paint as often as you can and don’t worry about whether or not you are “good enough”, I have found that painting in that exhilarating atmosphere is a great way to accelerate my development as a body painter.

From a fine art bodypainting I did last week, a section of design based on Mangbetu and Massai body art gave me an idea to combine it with Modern Art pictographs

a painting using pictographs by Paul Klee

At a party this past weekend I took the opportunity afforded by a girl in a blue outfit to do some color experiment with the Paul Klee and African images

I am also bringing some images from the Japanese print maker Kuniyoshi

http://www.fabaic.com/    http://www.agostinoarts.com

NY Makeup Show Bodypainting — Bodypainter or Makeup Artist?

by Christopher Agostino

This was my second time painting a body at The Makeup Show New York for Kryolan Professional Makeup and it was an exhilarating experience. It was also great to get a chance to work with Rebecca again, my model. I think of her as a muse, for she has always encouraged me to take chances and helped me develop the designs I paint on her through our discussions as we paint. I believe that bodypainting is a collaborative art between the painter and the model, and Becca is a great partner in the effort. We started painting at 10:30 and completed the full body in five hours. I did get the chance I was hoping for to realize a better iteration of this Animal Body design I have explored over the years. I changed the design to flow better around the body, including changing the direction of that movement, and I came up with better face design than previously. Given that this was a commercial gig, painting in the booth of a makeup company to demonstrate the product and draw attention, I’d rather be painting a design I am familiar with and confident in than trying something completely new (as Becca and I did the following day in a  studio session). This design also gave me a chance to show off the beautifully bright colors that are the reason why Kryolan’s Aquacolors are my makeup of choice.

James and Jessica interviewed attendees on their reaction to a painted body

With James McElligott there filming for his documentary we drew some additional attention. He also did some interviews with people that were stopping to watch, and, even though we were at a Makeup Show, there were a surprising number of people talking about how unusual it was to see a fully painted body. The one episode of Face Off that I saw was when they had to paint a body and I was surprised by how uncomfortable some of the contestants were with the concept of body paint, how unfamiliar it was to them. It’s a reminder to me that bodypainting still has an ability to shock and surprise people and, although I may be immersed in a world of painted people, what I do is unusual.

Which adds to the excitement of painting at The Makeup Show, for as I said to Rebecca while we were setting up, it makes me feel like “a real professional”. Face and body painting isn’t the kind of job that shows up on lists of professions for career day but at the Makeup Show I can feel a connection as a specialist within a small part of a large industry. I never think of myself as a makeup artist — understanding the level of expertise and training that comes with that title — but painting in that context I kinda have to. And I know my limitations: I can’t make a women’s eyes look beautiful for a wedding unless she wants cat’s eyes. I wouldn’t assume that the serious makeup artists at the show, doing fashion or TV and movies, would have seen me as part of the same profession, maybe more like something on a fringe, yet there was no lack of camaraderie and plenty of positive reaction to my process and the completed painting.

Rebecca is a makeup artist, so she was much more savvy than I about the vendors and the products, and when the painting was completed she had the additional pleasure of meeting Tate, her favorite contestant on Face Off.

Becca with Tate from Face Off

Is a bodypainter a makeup artist by definition? I think that is something for someone with a more legitimate claim than me to decide. Certainly a makeup artist can be a body painter, can include body painting within their everyday set of tasks for whatever job they are at. And many bodypainters come into this specialty as trained makeup artists and can handle cosmetics and make beautiful eyes — once while watching Nathalie Simard paint a fantastically theatrical full body design I was struck by the delicacy with which she did her model’s eye makeup.  When I think about it at all, I think of myself as a visual artist that paints on people.

www.kryolan.com

http://www.agostinoarts.com

See my fine art body painting at  https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/body-painting/

Facepainting Event: Modern Art Faces in Philly – Pt.2

The team at work at PIFAMore 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:

http://www.agostinoarts.com

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