Tag Archives: Abstract art

Halloween Face Painting — Saturday: Boo at the Zoo

Vampire Attack - With the bad weather it was a slow enough day that I had time to think of new designs to try like this variation on a figure placement we've used for other themes like aliens and sports figures.

Ice and Snow falling from the sky on a New York Halloween weekend, very unusual. And bad enough that outdoor events canceled and indoor events were under-attended.  The one good thing about days like these are that with less people to paint we can take more time with the faces and, especially, with the interaction with the people we paint. We have time for more playfulness and for working out new ideas. I was painting at the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn http://www.prospectparkzoo.com/ , and as the snow began to fall very few families showed up for Boo at the Zoo — so we got to paint the zoo staff and volunteers that don’t always get a chance. Even on a bad day, facepainting is a fun job (well on most bad days, at least).
Here’s a few from today.

Werewolf Moon variation - We were using our "nice or Spooky" theme and this staff volunteer said he wanted a face that was a little of both.

Turning a Georgia Okeeffe abstract painting into a bird

Another example of our current thread of working from fine art images, taking a Paul Klee abstract landscape painting and giving it a zoo-appropriate animal theme

Sunflower, a favorite subject

A playful squirrel face to suit this volunteer's wonderful smile

Zombie Eating Brains was another idea I had while waiting for more faces to paint, and I was glad to ahve a chance to try it. I'm sure I'll paint it again tomorrow and work to fit the idea to the face better. When I painted this face, the sweet little girl who was next in lines covered her eyes, and she wouldn't take her hands down (even as Jennifer tried to paint her face) until this young man left the room.

When it was time to paint that young girl's Dad we decided his "spooky" face shouldn't be too spooky, so I left out the eyes on the eyelids trick and gave him flying ghosts instead