Making Split Cakes

I have another face painting one for you today... yippee!!!

A lot of face painter's out there will tell you it can get quite expensive buying split cakes, as they can cost more then the single colour face paint's themselves. So today I am going to show you how you can make split cakes out of the colours you already have.

If your reading this this thinking 'what do cakes have to do with anything?' I don't blame you, I was the same when I first heard about split cakes. Basically a split cake is 2 or more colours pushed together in a single pot so you can pick up all the colours in a single stroke of your brush. 

You will need:

• Face Paints (colours you want in your cake)
• A Pot
• Knife / Artists Spatula
• Ruler
• Paper
• Tissue (to clean knife)

First of all you want to pick out what colours you want to use. Try to pick colours that blend well together as they will blend together a little on the brush.

Next you  want to measure out your pot, you can either use a new pot of an old face paint pot that you have used all of the paint out of, baring in mind round ones are harder to fit the paint into.

Using a ruler and paper, either draw around your pot or mark out the outline. This will become the template for cutting out the paint to size.

The potsI am using are just ones I have collected from my uncle, I think they had chocolates in but they have been washed, and it doesn't matter that they don't have a lid as I don't find they need one. 

Once you have your template, you need to mark out on your paint where you need to cut. I just use the tip on my spatula to put little dents in as the paint is soft.

Now you need to cut down into the paint, be gentle as sometimes the paint can break and crack. Make sure you go over each cut a couple of times to make sure it is cut all the way down. 

Then you need to price it out with the knife or spatula and transfer it to the new pot. Don't worry if it breaks because you can just mold it back together in the new pot.

Now do the same with the other colours until your split cake is completed. Remember to wipe off your knife or spatula between colours with a tissue. 

...And here is the end result! 

I know there are a few cracks in the orange, but they will fade out after the 2 or 3 uses. So, not as neat as the shop bought ones but its a lot cheaper, means you can pick out your own colours and order they go in and you get the same results so these are all round winners for me!

Hope this helped :)

Stay Inspired

Amy

xxx

Two Types of Bear

Hello again!

Today I have another face painting post for you, and this one is about teddy bears. 

I remember when I had just started out face painting, I think it was my second event, and this little boy sat down and said he wanted to be a bear... You can imagine my face. I had no idea where to even begin, thankfully I managed to convince him to be spider-man instead.

That night when I got home, I looked online for 'bear face painting' and I was glad I had convinced him otherwise.

Now though I have two types of bear that I paint, a simple one for the wriggly kids who can't sit still longer than 2 minutes. And a harder one that covers the full face, but I will show you how it's done.

If you are going to use these designs at your next face painting event, don't forget to practice a little first. 

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First I will show you the simple bear. This one is very good for little kids who don't want full coverage and those wriggly kids who seem to have ants in their pants (like my mum used to say).

1. Using pink paint, draw a semicircle over each eyebrow. You can use a brush or a sponge, I tend to use a 1/2'' flat brush but you can use any you are comfortable with.

2. With brown paint, draw a thick line round each semicircle to create ears. Join the ears together by drawing a thick line between the two. Then drag flicks upwards into the forehead for a the hair and using a dye brush or you finger, blend the bottom down onto the nose. While you have brown on your brush, you can also do the muzzle now by filling in between the top lip and nose and rounding it off at each side, Try to take a little onto the nose at each side just so the nose doesn't look separate.

3. Outline the ears and hair in black making sure the hair ends in thin points. I tend to just do a flick between the brown and pink of the ears as it looks odd if you outline the whole pink section. Then from each eye, do 3 flicks starting with the largest at the top.

4. Now you can outline the muzzle in black, starting from the top lip, curve it round and end in a point near the nose. Draw a thin line down the center and paint a triangle on the nose. Paint in the top lip with the black and curve the center thing line out to join the lip. Don't forget your whisker dots on each side of the lip, just to fill in the empty space.

5. Now you can either leave it like this, or for a tattered teddy you can paint a patch. Simply paint a square on the cheek of whatever colour you would like, outline in black and paint little stitches from the square onto the cheek.

TaDa... One quick and easy teddy bear that is perfect for girls and boys of any age!

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Now the other bear. This one is full coverage of the face, so it takes longer and uses more paint. If you charge for your face painting skills, you may want to take this into consideration when pricing. 

1. Using either a white or a pale yellow, paint a circle around the mouth and nose to create the muzzle of the teddy bear. And draw a small semicircle at each side of the forehead for the inside of the ears.

2. With Brown face paint, create a large circle around the face connecting at each side of the muzzle and fill in. Make sure you match up to each of the ears otherwise they will be floating.

3. Outline the muzzle and paint the lips in black. You can extend the lips if you like to make it look more happy. Paint on a nose and draw a thin black down connecting it to the top lip and round off at bottom.

4.Next you need to outline the rest of the bear in black, making sure to go around the ears and also outlining the inside ear too. With a dry brush go back over these lines dragging some of the paint out away from the design for make it look like fur or fluff. This also softens the design a bit so its not so harsh.

5. Now for the finishing touches. Draw a line straight down the center of the nose connecting the top to the muzzle, then create little stitches down this line. Add some little hash marks around the face to mark it look a bit tattered and to fill in any empty area's. For little girls, you can add some eyelashes by doing some black flicks on the outside of each eye. 

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If you are going to use these designs at your next event, practice them first to help you memorize them and experiment with them.

I hope you have enjoyed this post as much as I have, and I please leave pictures in the comments section below if you do try them out. 

If you have any questions or requests, please leave a comment and I will try my best to reply.

Stay Inspired

Amy

xxx

Face Painting - Practicing

Hello again!


I wanted to talk to you more about face painting. The other day I posted about starting off face painting and what essentials you needed to buy to get you started. Here is a link to that post:

http://libidascreations.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/thinking-of-face-painting.html

And I hope that post got you thinking about starting face painting because it is a really fun hobby and you have the potential to earn a little extra money from it if you decide to. But, before you get to that stage, you need to practice!

So whether you practice on yourself or some victim out there who doesn't know it yet, you need to get some designs done and it helps to practice. I know it comes without saying that the more you practice, the better you will get, but there are other benefits to come from it too. Such as, say if you have a design, the first couple of times you paint this design you will probably need a picture or drawing for reference, but, if you practice it, you will find that after a few times you won't need a reference anymore because you've practiced it and you know how to paint it without the reference. 

When I first started, I used Google images a lot by just searching 'face painting designs' and trying to copy from the images that came up. Now though, when I'm doing new designs, I also use Pinterest and YouTube for ideas and references. Usually I will start by copying the image or video once to see if I can do the design (trust me, for some of them it seems like you need to go through art college first), but also to see roughly how much paint is used as this all plays a part when it comes to pricing. 

Once I have copied the design once, I will take a photo and I draw out onto a template my own version of it. Like this... 

As you can see with this design I haven't changed too much as it is a simple design anyway. I just took some of the dots away and I've added some glitter, I have also replaced the snowflake in the center with just some simple flicks as I was trying to keep it simple. I have done this because I do charge for my face painting and I was trying to keep this one within a price range, which is with some of my cheaper designs. 

So, once I have drawn out my version of the design, I then paint out my design. While I am doing this, I make sure to time how long it takes as this adds to the pricing too (obviously designs that take longer will cost more).

This is my design painted out...

There is glitter on the dots under the eyes and on the blue diamond but you can't really see it in this photo. 

This is how I came up with a lot of my designs when I first started and I still use this method now for some of them. But the more designs you do, and the more you face paint, you will come up with your own style and methods that suit you. Sometimes I just sit down with a face template and draw whatever comes into mind. 

So, I hope this will help you come up with some designs of your own and remember... you have to practice!


Stay Inspired
Amy
xxx