face paint: five

The last in the face paint series - graphite, eyeshadow,
and glitter eyeliner.

“The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), American architect

face paint: four

I recently had an encouraging conversation with a fellow artist - we discussed how being an artist is not so much about producing a certain number of paintings or having commissioned work, etc. . . but being an artist is more about a way of life. If he is open to it, an artist can be the work of art, creating beauty, seeing the world differently, exhibiting change, shaking people from their default mode of seeing, providing a window to another world, even sharing art through something so simple as face painting. . .
something to ponder. More on this later, perhaps.

face paint: three

One little boy asked me to give his whale "angry eyebrows". The kid was six - what sort of childhood has he had?! Oh, boys : )

This piece was created using graphite and eyeshadow - a surprisingly fun medium to work in! It seems appropriate also for this face painting//makeup theme.

face paint: two

Needs a bit more color to truly resemble face paint. The parrot I created at the fair was full color but more cartoon like // I enjoy the more graceful lines of this parrot, though it would be nearly impossible to create for a wiggly little one.

face paint: one

Last Saturday I volunteered at the Broad Ripple Art Fair at the Indy Art Center. I was assigned to the Kids' tent and ended up painting faces for 3 hours. Soo wonderful! The children were adorable and completely mesmerized by the whole process of face painting. I asked questions while painting (what color should the cat's stripes be? do you have any cats? what's your cat's name?). . . some of the kids answered cautiously so they would not move and mess up the paint - others simply wiggled the entire time, distracted by the sand art table or wonderfully excited to tell me all about Fluffy and why the cat should have pink stripes. . .

This set of pieces is inspired by some of the designs that I painted on cute chubby cheeks at the art fair : )