by Christopher Agostino agostinoarts.com #transformationsny #mythicfaces
This past Sunday, June 29, I was back at the Hudson River Museum for Family Day, and I was invited by the organizers to take my inspiration for the faces from a wonderful current exhibit, “Mandy Greer:The Ecstatic Moment” (June 7-Sept.14). From the museum website:
Mandy Greer. Every Moment Lost is Lost Forever, 2013 Photo: Andrea Kurtz
“Seattle-based artist Mandy Greer installs a fantasy world awash in color, laced with glittering chandeliers, and alive with sumptuous birds and enigmatic figures draped in costume in her first New York solo exhibition. In The Ecstatic Moment at the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, June 7 to September 14, 2014, she draws her inspiration from ancient myths and fairy tales and from the mundane and magical moments of everyday life.”
The scale of her installations transforms parts of the museum into otherworldly landscapes peopled by fantastically costumed creatures, along with photographs of people wearing the costumes in ritualistic settings, often with their faces painted. 
Upon seeing the exhibit, I set myself the task of painting the faces of the museum visitors as if they would be inhabiting these costumes and landscapes, in some cases making mask-like designs as if they were enacting rituals like the scenes in the photos and in other cases taking a figurative approach to create personas related to the myth and folklore as well as the thematic description of the different sections of the exhibit (i.e. “Celestial”, and “Earth and Forest”). Hey, if you’re painting faces in an art museum, why not try to paint them like they belong there.
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- Winged woman
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- Moon Goddess
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- Spirit Dancer
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- Winged Troll
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- The Night Queen
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- Wood Shaman
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- The Wild Woman – Dzunukwa
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- Bird Mask
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- Beautiful Day
learn more about the exhibit at: http://www.hrm.org/exhibits.html and Video: Mandy Greer: The Ecstatic Moment
Learn about all we do at: agostinoarts.com
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