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.