At this year’s New York State Art Teacher’s Association Conference (NYSATA) I had the opportunity to do a presentation on my StoryFaces Mask Arts programs, which included performing a few stories from the assembly programs I do in schools, and we went through “Designing Tribal Masks Project”, an example of one of my classroom workshop programs, along with this sample handout: .StoryFaces_MaskArts_TribalMaskProject_agostinoarts
As the tiger leapt through the walls of fire, he began to burn with a flame of his own…
For one of their Friday After Dark workshops I offered “Face and Body Painting 101”, so during the day I also painted a model in the exhibit area as an example. It’s a design of familiar elements, from my story “The Tiger That Went to the House of the Sun”, which I would be telling that afternoon in the StoryFaces session. 
The open lobby area we were in was too chilly for my volunteer model, so I limited the painting to from 10:00 am to 12:30.
Face and Body Painting 101 at NYSATA
We also had a couple of volunteer models along with 14 participants for the Face and Body painting workshop that night, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.
Learn more about my school programs at:
Christopher Agostino’s StoryFaces
StoryFaces — Mask Art Workshops
STEP 1: BASE — With a sponge, put a solid base color over the whole face (except the eyelids). Use any medium shade: grey is classic zombie, but can be green, blue or others. (See below for info on the makeup, brushes and sponges we use — and also for a pdf of a green zombie and other variations)
STEP 2: SHADING — Add shading to exaggerate the sunken parts of the face: the eye sockets, the sides of the nose, the lines from the edge of the nose going around the mouth, the hollows on the cheeks and chin. Generally with horror make-up, you want to make the face more dramatic looking by putting shadows into the sunken, fleshy parts of the face and highlights on the bony parts (step 3). I do my shading by painting thin lines with black liquid make-up, then “pulling” those lines with a large soft brush to blend them into the grey base. You can also do your shading with the edge of a sponge — a triangular sponge works well for that.
STEP 3: HIGHLIGHTS — In this step I use a sponge to lightly put white makeup onto the bridge of the nose, the cheek bones, chin and forehead, to increase the sculpting of the face.
STEP 4: EYES & MOUTH — I add a red spot for the eyes and black to create the open mouth shape. It’s part of the style that I work in that the mouth is kind of loose and jagged — I like my monster faces to look “ill-formed”, not too precise.
STEP 5: FINAL DETAILS and EXPRESSIVE LINES — In this case I gave him small pointy teeth with some red dots for blood. I used what I term “expressive lines” to give his eyes an angrier look — they same kind of line techniques a cartoonist would use to change the expressions of an illustration can create the modern, fast type angry zombie or, with different eye lines, the old-fashioned shambling type zombie (in this case, I modeled off of those furrowed brows they always give the Hulk when he’s angry in comic books).
ZOMBIE VARIATIONS — Starting from this basic formula of using shading and highlights to make the face dramatic, using bizarre colors, and adding playful details like a gory mouth and zombie eyes, you can make a whole range of zombies, monsters, and other horror make-ups. The blue shaded zombie here was also painted at the same event. See the 3 previous posts for galleries of Halloween faces and variations.
MAKE-UP AND TOOLS — There are a lot of good face painting make-ups available today, so please be sure to get a safe, comfortable make-up product for any facepainting. Never use 
