Conference moira::parenting

Wow, are you organized!  I'm impressed.  Your supplies and picture choices all
sound good.

I would avoid poster paint entirely, and use only stuff that is intended for
use on faces.  Also, the face painting book we have at home mentioned that you
should keep red face paint away from eyes.

A bit of encouragement from the book is that kids love face painting and are
not art critics; don't worry if it doesn't look exactly the way you intended,
they'll like it just fine.

						Brian

    Just curious ... are you planning on giving them the option of having
    their whole face painted?  Like making them look like a kitty or a
    clown?  Kitty is easy ... a black nose, a few whiskers... maybe some
    fur lines.  Clown .. a full white face, a red nose, and a few designs
    for eyebrows and lips.
    
    If you are planning on offering a clown, be sure that you have a powder
    sock.  Take an old sock and fill it with baby powder or corn starch. 
    After you paint the white face, pat the face with the sock.  This will
    dry the white paint enough so that you can paint on top of it.
    
    Other than that, it sounds like you're ok.  Be sure to keep a good
    supply of water on hand, as you'll have to change your cleaning water
    quite a bit.  You may want a few of each brush, just to change from
    dark colors to light colors.  
    
    Also, Mickey Mouse is a pretty easy design to do, especially if it's
    just a silouette of mickey.  And Flowers are easy too.
    
    I did face painting a NUMBER of times while I was in High School and
    afterward.  I was a clown for a number of years at the Bolton Fair and
    at the Lords Acre Corn Festival in Bolton.  Let me know if you'd like
    some more info.
    
    Holly
    

    Oh yes.. I forgot about the red paint!! Red face paint is difficult to
    get off, and usually stains the face for a while.  However, it's much
    easier to get off with babyoil.  You may want to suggest that to the
    parents.
    
    Holly
    

I've done face painting for my son's class at their Halloween party a couple
of times (2nd and 3rd grade).  Based on that rather limited experience, I'd
suggest
	1. take more brushes (if you can get one brush per color, you can
	   save time by not having to rinse so carefully)

	2. for the design choices, add a yin-yang symbol - this was by far
	   the most popular choice among the grade school boys I painted
	   (for the girls, it was probably rainbows - I also did a lot of
	   pumpkins, but that was obviously seasonal).

I'm sure you'll have a great time - the kids are so appreciative of even
my meager-to-nonexistent artistic skills!

				cheryl

Thanks for the tips so far!  I am not planning on doing whole face designs.
I read about red being difficult to remove on the back of something I looked
at. I probably won't be using lots of red, although maybe some, I'll be sure
to mention about the baby oil. For the most part, I will probably just paint 
on cheeks - no where near eyes.

Leslie

As for taking more brushes - do the cheap children's paintbrushes work okay?

The four brushes I chose are not real expensive brushes, but they are a couple
of notches up from the kind the brush that comes with children's paint sets. I
don't want to bring my expensive watercolor brushes along (I am a water color 
painter which is how I got asked to do this, but of course, its actually quite
a different thing altogether.) However, I am used to constantly cleaning 
brushes as I paint.

Leslie

    Cheap brushes work just fine.  I used those for a friends party.  Kids
    ask for the darndest things on their faces.  Work for effect rather
    than reality in some designs.  ("I want a deer walking out of the woods
    on my face." try coming up with the design quickly, you can if you are
    willing to be abstract and convincing)  
    
    Unicorns, butterflies, dragons, birds, and cats were the more popular
    designs the day I was working on kids.  good luck, I really did have
    the request for the deer.  It wasn't the best artistry I have done,
    but....
    
    Good luck,
    
    meg

    
    When I did this I used Q-tips for brushs.    I used a clean one for 
    each child.  
    
    I painted on a board "examples" of designs and asked them to pick. 
    Simple things that I already practiced drawing.  
    
    /Teri

Well, the big face paint day has come and gone. I think it was pretty 
successful. I had a poster of 20 designs for the kid's to pick from. The most 
popular ones were the butterfly & the dalmation puppy. I did one caterpillar, 
one mouse, one frog, one geometric design. Nobody asked for the sunflower, 
snail (which I thought was a great design), mushroom, or baseball & bat. Other
popular choices besides the very very popular butterfly & dalmation were the 
heart, the rainbow (with cloud and silver glitter raindrops), and the kitty. 
I did a few balloons and daisies too. The best part was seeing the kids' faces
light up with a big grin when I held the mirror up for them after I was 
finished. 

One tiny young girl with enormous eyes was memorable for her quietness. She
sat down and I asked her what she wanted, big eyes stared back at me, but 
her mouth didn't open, I leaned forward and asked again & got the same response,
so I asked her if she wanted a daisy, almost imperceptibly she shook her head 
"no" - it was really hard to tell. I asked her she'd like a butterfly like the
girl before her, I thought she nodded yes, so I said okay, I'll make a pretty 
blue butterfly, at which point her mother suddenly intervened, and said "Oh, 
she wanted a cat". So I asked her if she wanted a kitty-cat, and got another 
stare, and then a little nod "yes". She did smile a little at the end when I 
held up the mirror for her. She was the most still, most shy, and quietest 
little girl I've met.

A few of the kids had the designs painted on their hands, and it was kind
of interesting to see their faces change as they saw what started as a lumpy
shape of white, or brown, or green suddenly transform into puppy, kitty, or 
frog with a few lines, and dots of other color. One little boy kept coming over
to watch. The problem was he wanted to stand close to the design being done - 
which usually meant he'd move in between me and the child whose face or
hand I was painting, so I kept having to have him move.

Anyhow, it went well and I'll probably offer to do it again next year. Thanks
for all the tips.

Leslie

Other designs that no one asked for were the ladybug and goldfish, though
one kid came by asking for a goldfish just as I was finishing packing up at
the end of the day. We were going out to dinner with friends so I had to 
explain that I was all finished & couldn't do anymore. (Also I was one of 
the last booths to close up and the cleaning crew was itching to clean up
and get out of there.) I would have liked to have done the goldfish as I 
thought it was really cute too. Another moderately popular design that I forgot
about in my previous note was the moon and stars one which I did a few of.

Leslie