Imposter Syndrome

This quote is from a book called "The Daily Entrepreneur: 33 Success Habits for Small Business Owners, Freelancers and Aspiring 9-5 Escape Artists".

Click here to find it on Amazon

This quote in particular, about feeling that someone is about to turn up and explain to you that you aren't a business, you are just messing around, you don't really know what you're doing and say "Enough playing, time to get up, go to work and do a real job". Not too long ago this feeling really hit me and I suddenly struggled to even update my business Facebook page. I was completely convinced that starting my business was just a desperate excuse not to get a job, and that doing a bit of face painting and henna tattooing was not a career. Perhaps I should admit to myself that these things are fun, but they are just hobbies. I should get a job, work during the day for a steady income and then spend my weekends doing a bit of face painting.

Our Education System

A story of a little boy with a passion for trees

In our society, particularly in our system of education, there can still be felt the influence of an education system built during the industrial revolution to create workers, managers, accountants, or whatever was needed at the time. What type of worker was needed was set by the Government and the curriculum of schools adjusted accordingly. It may seem that this is not at all the case today. However, on the whole, this sadly does not seem to be the case. All that has changed are the types of jobs we are training our children to do.

One school I was teaching in had a little boy who was only 4 years old. He was autistic and required a career to be with him at all times. However, what was incredibly remarkable about this child was his fascination with trees. He could look at any tree or bush and tell you what type of tree or bush is was, how healthy it was, what flowers would bloom on it, roughly how long it had lived, and more! The school had a couple of acres of pretty woodland attached to it, and he would delight in taking visitors around and telling them about all of the trees. He would always carry a small branch everywhere he went.

This boy knew so much about trees that the groundskeeper would only cut down rotten branches or clear spaces entirely based on the word of this 4 year old.

But in a school a passion is not valued particularly highly if it is not a passion deemed "useful" by the Government. Over the last few years, the Government has been focusing less on engineering skills and more on academic skills, particularly maths and science. Because of this, if a child shows a love of maths and a passion for problem solving then they are rewarded highly with maths clubs, competitions, challenges and get to be in the subject they love for an hour a day.

However, this 5 year old boy just had the wrong passion. Instead of being allowed to spend his time developing his passion, he was dragged into maths lesson after maths lesson, learning about graphs or angles of polygons. He would spend each lesson staring out of the window watching the leaves blow in the wind and being continually scolded for not completing his worksheet.

Just imagine the outrage in our society if there was a boy who was incredible at maths, but every day the class had an hour of learning about the life-cycles of trees, pollination and gardening. If he was allowed to do maths at home but was told off if he was found secretly practicing his times tables instead of drawing out diagrams of leaves.

Artists are not useful

or "Why You Should Stop Drawing and Become an Accountant"

Sadly, artists are just not valued highly in our education system, simply because the Government wants people who fit into pre-determined roles and jobs that will benefit society financially. Sure, we have art lessons at school, but what about the child who longs to learn circus skills? The child who just wants to draw cartoons? We are sometimes encouraged by our teachers and parents to learn these skills through after-school clubs or "experience weekends", but how often are we encouraged to take our passion and turn it into a job? More often that not we are simply told that these skills are hobbies, to be enjoyed as a reward after getting Government approved 9-5 jobs.

It is extremely hard to deviate from the path set by so many others. To decide that you only have one shot at life, and you're going to do it your way. It is easy to follow a path that guarantees a nice income. It is easy to convince yourself that no-one enjoys work and only a few very lucky people have managed to get a job they enjoy.

It is easy to watch your life go by.

But to find your passion, to push forward through problems, to do what you love everyday, rewards the soul. It is the difference between existing and living.

Christmas is getting closer!

My first two Christmas designs and a tale of Snow White

Christmas is creeping closer and it has become time for the classic Christmas designs to come out! I love this red flower design too as a less traditional option.

I wore the holly design to a Christmas market on Saturday and it was very popular with children and adults alike! This design was also incredibly flexible and allowed me to paint full face designs, cheek designs and in one case a tiny wrist design.

One thing that never gets boring at events is hearing the ideas that the children come up with - whether they make something up on the spot or come up with an idea already formulated they never fail to be creative. 

At my last market event I had one particular little girl (I would guess just less than 3 years old) who knew exactly what she wanted. She was dressed in a classic Snow White dress, a shiny plastic tiara and plastic princess shoes that were much too big for her. Unsurprisingly, she wanted to be Snow White. This presented a slight problem, as the little girl didn't want a crown painted (as she pointed out, she was already wearing a crown) but she wanted more than just red lips and rosy cheeks. Establishing what the "more" was was a delicate process that finally ended in the little girl choosing a "HUGE MASSIVE LOVE HEART" on her forehead.

It is cases like these that make sure face painting is never straight forward and never boring! Catering for a child's imagination can often be very tricky, as often they cannot articulate the image they have in their mind, and can consequently be disappointed with the final result in the mirror, even if you have followed their directions exactly. 

This usually leads to one of two reactions from parents. The first group of parents will clearly blame you as the face painter for not being practiced in the art of telepathy and whisk their children away as quickly as possible. The second (and most common) reaction is to stare in horror at their son or daughter who, after demanding a complex or difficult and very specific design, is extremely vocal about how the design is not what they asked for. In those cases I always make sure the parents understand that children are never vindictive in their reaction to their face paint, it is always genuine and always important.

If I can I will always take the extra time to make sure children are happy with their designs; just because the tiger design you use has been perfect for all of the other children, there is no reason why it should be considered a "one size fits all". For this reason I do not take pictures to my events, and instead have a few ideas written on a board and allow the children's ideas to tell me what to do.

The next move...

I have reached the point in my painting where I have become reasonably confident in my ability to make designs up on the spot or modify designs to fit the ideas the children have, so I will hopefully be starting my own face painting and henna tutorials in the near future as well as the tips and tricks that have helped me so far.

Finding My Passion

About my blog

I have found that, although it is important to have a goal, it is people that motivate you. It is the stories of those who have battled against impossible odds to reach their goals that really stop you in your tracks and make you reflect on your own life. I have always admired people who go above and beyond to achieve great things, who don't simply follow the beaten path and who are willing to risk everything to follow their dream.

However, it wasn't until very recently that I ever considered taking my future into my own hands to follow my own passions. This blog is my tribute to those who inspire me every day. Those who freely share knowledge and experiences for no personal gain, and without whom I would not have had the courage to make the choices that I have. I hope that I can share my own knowledge and experiences in turn, wherever my life goes from here.

When I started to learn to face paint, I didn't know a single face painter. The only places I had seen people face paint was at carnivals or fundraising events and even they were years ago. If it was not for the people all across the world sharing their skills and stories on the internet I would never have been able to discover the body art world where I feel so alive.

How I discovered my passion for face painting

Probably the best place to begin is to explain how I became a face painter in the first place. In the summer of this year I left my job working as a cocktail barmaid and became a children's party host at a huge indoor soft-play area. For every two hour party I would blow up balloons, cut birthday cake and set the tables of the party room with food and drink. When the party guests arrived it was the job of the host to wristband-up the children and to get the adults settled, and after the play time was over the party moved up to the prepared room for food, music and party games. 

I was introduced to balloon modelling and instantly went home and spent hours on YouTube until I could do all kinds of cool designs, and loved that I could keep doing them at work. One day I saw one of the other girls doing some face painting for a party during their "play time". They were using a Snazaroo kit (the type that come in a big yellow plastic box) and working from a very basic face painting board. I hadn't seen face painting being done for years and I instantly longed to have a go. Finally, I was asked to assist the face paint girl during a party and I knew that it was my passion.

The kit they used was covered in old paint, the brushes were bent and didn't look like they had ever been washed and there wasn't a pot of glitter in sight, but one shift the face paint girl was ill and I was asked to step in and I truly loved every minute of it. I went online that night and bought my own beginner Snazaroo kit. When it arrived I immediately started painting, and by the evening had ordered some more colours to allow me to do tigers and princess masks. I kept watching the face paint girl at work and took pictures of the display boards to practice at home. I watched YouTube videos for hours a day, writing notes and painting designs on paper. The pictures below are my first three face paints using the Snazaroo paints and brushed. 

 My very first face paints from April 2014

Pretty soon I began to discover other brands of face paint, different types of brushes and what one-stroke and rainbow cakes were. One messy afternoon after work I dissected some of my Snazaroo paints to create my own rainbow cakes, and after a month I finally plucked up the courage to take them into work for a face paint shift. The response I got from those face paints from the parents and children was like nothing I had ever had before; parents were asking if I did private parties and the children loved their glittering butterflies, tigers and princess crowns.

However, my manager and supervisors did not encourage me in my face painting, and rarely let me do parties. The regular face paint girl did much simpler faces that were easy to mass produce and as I had only been employed there a couple of months I was still very much the new girl. But I knew that I loved face painting and just a couple of weeks later I had created the concept of my own face painting company "Flysk". I created some business cards and one of the parents who had seen me face paint booked me for a party. By the next week I had handed my notice in, and decided against all good logic and sense to pursue face painting.

It has now been 8 months and I can't believe how much my life has changed. Through face painting I have met so many like-minded people. They inspire me every day to keep pushing that creativity, to keep learning and to follow the passion, not the money. Create opportunity where you are, don't spend your life waiting for it to fall into your lap.