The Many Faces Of Face Painting

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 26th, 2010

Face painting is one of the cherished activities of festivals, carnivals, parades and events across the country. More and more holidays are beginning to use face painting as a great activity for kids. Schools can also incorporate it as a station on their annual field day. Halloween may boast the most face painting out of any holiday, but summer fairs and county festivals run close behind. The designs are too innumerable to count. A face can be transformed in its entirety, into an animal, character or monster. Face painters often use stencils, which are painted and then stamped onto the face, and can be popular, too. Whatever designs the children, or even adult asks the face painter for, there are a hundred ways to go about getting a great design.

Stencils and stamps are probably the easiest way for beginners to successfully do face painting. The stencils themselves can be cleaned with alcohol or wet wipes between paintings for sanitary reasons. A brush is then used to apply a new color or set of colors for the next child. Different colors can be used for separate parts of the stamp. For example, a butterfly can be outlined in blue and filled in with yellow. The stamp is then pressed against the person's cheek. This is a good way to get the lines just right each time.

Many people who do face painting will do everything with a paint brush. Whiskers, dog eyes, hearts, rainbows and Spider Man are all popular. For the 4th of July, a face could be painted completely with red, white and blue stars. For Easter, decorative eggs, bunny rabbits, flowers and baskets can all easily be painted onto the face. Try hearts for Valentine's Day, or a candy cane face with alternating red and white stripes for a wild, Christmas gathering. People will surprise face painters with creative requests, however. Be prepared to paint just about any character, emblem or color imaginable.

Halloween certainly boasts the biggest number of face painted ghouls, vampires, monsters and more. For the Hulk, one can simply paint their faces green. You can also use a simple Halloween theme, as well. Try bats, a spider web face, or an eerie yellowish tint for a witch's face. Zombies and ghouls can cast sunken features under their eyes and paint blood around their mouths. Of course, the characters don't have to be scary. It's not hard to paint a clown face, with a little patience for painting a giant mouth, or using a solid color to enhance a costume, such as a giant raisin, bear or anything else one can build or find a costume for. Many Halloween costumes will provide directions for adding face painting. There are also plenty of kits in stores or on the web, which are geared for specific characters, or that come with all the colors for one's own creativity to come out. In general, these paints are a little thicker and harder to remove than the typical face paint used for your everyday festival or event.