So my DH and I are organizing a block party at our church (it's this Saturday) as a way to get the community to come out so we can give them the gospel.
We're having it set up similarly to a small carnival/fair. We have about 12 different games (basic fair stuff, ring toss, throwing balls into baskets, throw a hula hoop around a milk bottle, toss a ball through a clowns mouth, knock down cups with a squirt gun, ski ball, a bowling game,etc.)
we are also holding an "event" every half an hour...like Simon says, 3 legged raise, water balloon toss, egg on a spoon race, etc. for which we're giving out trophies to the top 3 winners.
Last but not least we have some food booths going on, elephant ears (for those that don't know it's fried dough w/ cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar on it) hot dogs, chips, baked goods, we also have a booth doing edible sand art (sandy candy it's called)
it's all free, and we're hoping for a really good turn out.......the problem is.....they want to have a face painting booth and they've NOMINATED ME to do the painting!! I have NEVER painted a face in my life!! My DH said "I've seen you paint on cakes, how hard can it be?"
My response was that my cakes don't talk and figgit while I'm paint them LOL
Not to mention I have absolutely NO IDEA of what to paint on these children. I don't want it to seem stupid or like I don't know what I'm doing.
My DH bought a kit/pallette that has 16 different little cakes of color, it's "snazaroo" brand which I guess is decent??? You use water on a brush and use them like watercolors I guess. We have 3 little brushes as well, same brand.
I'm kinda freakin out here.....Does anyone here face paint by any chance??
I'm looking for some pointers on keeping kids still and what designs are the easiest to pull off without looking like a low class carnival.
I know it's free, and people should be happy with whatever they get, but I'd like it to look like they PAID for it, but have it be free LOL.
I am sure you can do it!! For boys, how about a snake? They are always popular. And for girls a butterfly. They are easy to do. Even a teddy bear can be done with big and small dots. Or a skull for the boys - just a kind of light bulb shape and dark circles for the eyes. You can make a ziz zag mouth. Cats are easy too. You need to practice on some paper first and you can give them a few choices but not ask what they want and they say something like dora or transformers. lol.
Oh, I know you can do it. I have seen your beautifully painted cakes. I have only painted my kids faces last Halloween. I looked at Youtube and got some good ideas. I would make a chart/list of a few faces (how many you feel comfortable doing) and show it to the kids. That way they can't come with all their imaginative requests. Some for girls and some for boys. And for example a cat, they can still have the free choice of getting a pink cat or a black cat.
Sounds like it is going to be a fun event. I hope it all goes well!
I've done it before for school fundraisers-several years ago. Now we didn't paint character faces like the pictures above, but had about a dozen pictures or symbols the kids could choose from. We had simple things like rainbows, hearts, butterflies, the school mascot, local college initials, team logos, etc. By limiting the choices we were able to do a better job and keep the line moving rather quickly.
We used acrylic paints. They dried quickly, and would wash off pretty easily. I remember trying it with tempera paints, and I think they worked, but cracked and flaked when dry.
Hope this helps. Sounds like you have a great day planned.
kit/pallette that has 16 different little cakes of color, it's "snazaroo" brand which I guess is decent??? You use water on a brush and use them like watercolors I guess.
Those little cakes of watercolor paint won't work. Make sure you get some non-toxic acrylic paints. If you don't already own bottles and bottles of it, just get one of those strips of tiny plastic paint containers... you know, the ones with the lids attached by a loop of plastic and all of the paint colors are attached in a row? That's all you need. You can find 'em at Walgreens or Wal-Mart (and any other hobby shop).
Our kids work on a farm every fall doing face painting, and also during a Santa's breakfast in a restaurant. They have several choices of designs that they've painted on a piece of cardboard that stands up. (not too many choices though, or the kids can't decide!)
Try painting some simple, quick designs on a piece of paper using no more than three colors... you'll soon discover which ones are the easiest or turn out the best, then add it to your final board of choices.
Surprisingly, the kids sit still for it. If they squirm, just tell 'em their design will be messed up. Remember to bring a handheld mirror too... they love to be able to see the finished work!
Be prepared to offer full face designs instead of only small ones on the cheek... they'll ask for cat whiskers on both cheeks and stuff like that even if it isn't a choice. (I'll post more, if I can think of anything else... have fun!)
Thank you guys so much............the little cakes of paint/watercolor stuff I got is made for facepainting so it should work!
I printed out some of these generic boy and girl faces, so I'm going to sit and sketch a few design out. Love the idea of the butterfly and snake too.
Girl designs are easy, it's the boys I'm having trouble with.
My DH says "just do a little picture of something on their cheek" but i think that can be cheesy looking, I always think the full face ones look so much nicer!
LOVE TIGGER and the Dragon? So adorable!!! You're like a pro with the face painting from what I can see!!!
I usually do the face painting at friends' birthday parties and f there are a lot of kids I just do a foam stamp- they sell them at michaels in different shapes: football, basketball, bugs, princess, etc and brush the paint on the stamp and presto!!
be prepared if you do the whole face that the kids might get antsy and the line will be long. I will also suggest you have a list of the designs you can or will do: spiderman, tiger, fairy and if possible pictures of them that way kids can point it out and you don't have to tell a kid: sorry I can's do that.
Good luck and I want pics...
Just realized what great tip I got from watching how they face paint on youtube. They use a painting sponge to cover the basic colors around eyes and face (1 or 2 colors) and only using brushes for the details. It will be easier and quicker for you plus you don't get brush strokes.
I bought mine at michaels, they have a triangular shape!
I've used Crayola water color pencils at preschool. Just wet the tip and draw, make sure to have a pencil sharpener. It was several years ago so they might have ones that just twist-up? Make a small poster with the designs so the kids can choose, once you do a requested one you be doing different one all day! Baby wipes are great for mistakes. Have Fun!! 
I recommend a makeup sponge and lots of white base paint so that the colours wash off much easier at the end of the day if you do a full face design. Try reading through the site facepaintingdesigns.co.uk there is loads of advice to get you started.
thanks so much, I went and got some adhesive gems, glitter, baby wipes, and make up sponges today. Hopefully I'll be all set!!
I thought it would be cute to paint a tiara on little girls' foreheads and stick self adhesive gemstones on the tiara lol
I was just going to suggest the tiara idea. My dd got her face painted recently and that is what she chose. It was really cute.
You could cut some q-tips in half and use those to give the girls a little "lip gloss" with the paints.
The girl that painted my dd's face did that and she loved it, it made her feel even more like a princess!
For the boys my son said he would pick a spider or a dinosaur face.
What about a pirate face? You could paint over one eye for the eye patch and give some freckles and a scruffy beard.
"Snazaroo" is what professional clowns use! It's the best facepaint!
100% agree.
And face painting is a little like cakes - very addictive and there is so much more to it than painting a design on someone (or frosting a cake). There are embellishments - like stick on gems and glitter specifically for skin. And there are safe paints, like Snazaroo, and not safe paints, like acrylic. Just because it's non-toxic doesn't mean it's safe for skin. It's non-toxic, so why is it not used on cakes????
Here's a link to a face painting forum where I learned a lot: http://groups.google.com/group/facepainthq/topics?hl=en (You will have to join to read it, but it's great information.)
You may notice similar topics on their forum as on CC, like contracts, customers trying to get the cheaper prices, helpful hints, videos, etc.
Good luck - you'll do great! I started learning face painting before jumping to cookie decorating. My boys (ages 8 and 9 and special needs) don't like paint on their faces. So my stick people still have see-through clothes, but practicing with icing has improved my drawing.
lol, I forced my kids to let me practice on them.......they only gave me ONE shot. I painted a frog on my sons face (made his mouth, the frogs mouth), painted the eyes on either side of his nose, put some flies on his forehead and one on his nose (lol) and then painted some long pieces of grass coming up on either side on his cheeks almost up to the sides of his eyes. It was SO cute!!
I took the pic with my cell phone and I'm not sure how to get it off of there...but I also made him open his mouth really big for a pic....it was so funny when he would talk because you saw this green frog and your eyes couldn't help but go to the frog and it looked like the FROG was talking to me so I just stood there and giggled.
My DS (who's ran upstairs in the middle of a sentence and came back 3 minutes later with a clean face and said "now can you hear me??" LOL
I told him he had to let me paint his face again at the fair so that other kids could see his face and it would make them want it done to them.......he looked at me and said.....Please mommy, just put up a sign and they'll come...I don't want to have that on my face in public!!!!" Poor kid!!
My DD on the other hand LOVED it.. She got a tiara (she actually gave me the idea for the gems), and a flower on one cheek and a butterfly on the other cheek.
I made up some one cheek designs and also some full face designs, so there is something for everyone.
I'll snap a photo of the board I made in a bit to show the designs available for you guys.
thanks so much for your help....and it's good to know that my DH picked out a good paint for me!
Ok, I did it!!!
We had a GREAT time and LOTS of people showed up, which is awesome! The facepainting was a HIT! I had a steady line of people from 15 min. before start time until 30 min. after we were supposed to be closed up! I even had adults wanting their faces painted!! lol
I took photos of the first 4 victims.....after that I was just trying to paint fast and keep the line moving. I had over 20 designs they could choose from about 16 of them were full face designs and the others were simple things they could get on one cheek (flowers, unicorn, spider, etc.)
pic #1- chart w/ designs
pic #2- My DD w/ a unicorn and tiara w/ gems
pic #3- Butterfly
pic #4- Supposed to be a kitty
pic #5- Rose on cheek
pic #6-pirate...she had a knot on the "bandana" on the other side, and a scar on her cheek....she opted NOT to have the white polka dots on the bandana as per the design.
thanks, it was actually a lot more fun that I thought it would be!!! I had one lady ask me if I had an "hourly rate" for children's birthday parties? I was like........UH...this is my first time painting faces!! lol
The woman took my business card and said she wanted to get ahold of me later this year for her DD's birthday. She said there will be about 30 kids and let her know if I want an hourly wage, or a per kid cost!
My DH said.....tell her $50/hr. It could take you all day to paint 30 kids LOL
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