Ok, so someone gave you a face painting kit at your
church or school fundraiser and said you are going to be our face painter for
today's carnival. You, like a good volunteer, just did what you were told to
do. You did not expect, you were going to have so much fun
doing it. In addition, you didn't think you would be near as good at this new
art. People kept asking you how many years you've
been painting, when the answer was "about two hours". Everyone likes to be
complimented. Now you are hooked... you have the face painting bug. Now you
want to see if you can get some real training and take your painting to the
next level. This article is to guide you to several tools or resources that
can help you out.
1) Look for some face painting books. There are probably
about fifty different face painting books on the market and many of them are
excellent. If you are lucky, you might even find one or two of them at your
local library. If not, you can look at your local clown or costume shop, look
on-line or even go to
www.rubyredpaint.com/products.htm and there are ten different books that are
top sellers. Many of these books will give you step by step instructions. You
might also find a face painting video, but these are much harder to find.
2) Look in the phone book and try to get connected to a
local clown alley. These groups help each other in learning clown skills. I'm
sure someone in the local alley can give you some pointers.
4) Ruby Red Paints also comes all over and teaches face
painting classes for free, IF you can get together 50 people that are
interested in face painting. Yes, we will come to your town at our
expense. See
http://www.rubyredpaint.com/lecture.htm for more information. Classes can
cover everything from beginning face painting to how to build a face painting
business.
5) Subscribe to a Face Painting magazine.
This magazine is dedicated to the art of face and body painting. It comes out
four times per year and always has something interesting. Subscribe at
www.sillyfarm.com
6) Get together with several friends that have an
interest in face painting and have a "Jam". This is where you get together and
share ideas with each other. On top of that people generally share their
latest face painting products. If you want to progress you want to get some
better supplies.
7) Look at the Ruby Red Paints photo pages where you can
literally see thousands of face painting ideas. Go to
http://www.rubyredpaint.com/photos.htm In an effort to save you some time
first look at those pages with the big "X" otherwise you could be downloading
for hours and hours.
8) Look at all the free tips that you can find at the
frequently asked question page at
http://www.rubyredpaint.com/faq.htm There you can learn everything from how to
paint the perfect line to keeping the crowds in control while painting.
9) The next time you are at a park or some place where
someone else is face painting stop and have a chat. In general, you will find
MOST face painters are open and willing to share ideas. Make a connection and
you might have a friend and mentor for life.
10) In the larger cities there
are organizations called "guilds" where face painters get together and share
ideas. Take a look at
www.rubyredpaint.com/hold/guild.htm
11) Still need some ideas on where to learn? Well how
about the opportunity to talk directly to close to a thousand face painters.
Some of them are beginners like you and others have been earning their full
income from face painting. Did I mention that this is also FREE? You can
e-mail face painters in the world's largest gathering of face painters, on
this discussion list. You can get e-mails as they are sent out, or if you
wish, you can have the e-mails sent to you in one tidy batch once per day.
Here you will get thousands of ideas and you can ask any face painting
question you want. The people on the list are great and very helpful. To join
the list follow these simple instructions... go to the page
http://www.rubyredpaint.com/email.htm
click on the "join facepaint" icon in the middle of the page. You then get to
choose your options on the new page.
Well, we have been giving you lots of places to learn.
Take all of that information and go down to your local park where you find
little children. Take along your beginning face painting supplies and start
painting children. You might put out a small tip bucket to help you pay for
the supplies that are used. Put in a few Saturday's like this and you will be
well on your way to increasing your skills and as the line gets larger and
larger you will also learn some tricks to make you a faster painter.
Do you have a face painting question that you would like
to see answered in the next FAQ (frequently asked question)? If so e-mail me
at gary@rubyredpaint.com and you might see
the FAQ dedicated to your face painting question.