Teaching Yourself How to Face Paint

Face painting looks terrific on parties, family events and sports matches. People possessing a creative bone can certainly seek the art of face painting. You can learn face painting through simple guide books and DVDs. Internet is also a convenient and cheap source of learning face painting skill.

For becoming a face painter, you need to know different designs, way of applying required strokes for each design, use of right tools and some fundamental face-painting techniques. For starting the procedure, all you need is to first buy a face-painting kit. The kit contains water- based and skin-friendly face paints and the tools. In the beginning, you only need to buy the basic colours like black, white, red, blue and yellow. The face painting tools comprise of sponges, all size paint brushes, wipers and stencils.

First of all, you need to have knowledge of different face-painting designs. You can take ideas from magazines, newspapers and online face-painting websites. You may start from the simple designs such as stars, hearts and flowers. The kit contains stencils for these simple deigns. It is better for a beginner to use stencils to gain control over the hand.

Secondly, you need to know about the tools for a particular step and design. For instance, you can only use sponges to make the base for a full face design. A brush will take more time and will not give an even base. Moreover, you need to apply two thin coats to cover the genuine colour of the skin. The different sized face painting brushes are used for detailed work. Medium sized brushes are used for filling in larger areas while a thin pointed brush is used for more detailed work around the eyes and other areas, depending on the design.

Thirdly, it is important to have a complete picture of design in your mind, or otherwise, you should at least have a print-out in front of you. You may also sketch a design on a paper and colour it with the pencils colours. This will help you to remember the design and will consequently give you more confidence.

The next important thing is the movement of the hands. You should know where you need a soft or a firm hand. You need a confident and firm hand for drawing the design defining lines, whereas the shading is done with very soft hands. The use of water is also very important. Using too much water will cause your paint to run off. You need slightly wet brush for drawing lines, while shading requires dilute paints.

In addition to the basic colours, you can also use glitter paints. These are best for shading and filling the design. You can also use tattoos to cover the deficiencies in the paint.

Finally, it is very important to take care of the hygiene while painting. You should check the paint on the arm before applying it on the face. Always buy high-quality paints. As infected areas are vulnerable to damage, you should not paint a face having any skin allergy, cold sour or cut. In essence, learning face painting is not a difficult task, and you can learn even if you have picked the brush for the first time.