Painting at the Kryolan booth on Thursday in preparation for the opening Mad Hatter's party and jam
Just time for the the first foto from my stint here at FABAIC. Today will be a particularly busy day, painting a model this morning in preparation for my class on UV and Interferenze makeups, and tonight I have plans to paint in a style that will be a streach for me, based on the Japanese prints of Kuniyoshi.
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.
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
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.
See my fine art body painting at https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/body-painting/
