Saturday night was the annual birthday theme night that Naomi and her friends do every year… this year the theme was Dead Pirates. This was the biggest group yet – eight of them to make-up. One parrot, two wenches, and five pirates.
These guys go all out on costuming and accessories, props and role-playing. The party usually starts in my basement as I am doing their make-up. This year didn’t include any SFX, just face and body painting. They bring dinner and an assortment of beverages with them and do each other’s hair, sewing last-minute costume parts, mix and match weapons and bling. They even had a treasure chest and ship’s wheel to lug around.
Here are photos I took before they headed off on their pub crawl:
All in all I am happy with how they all turned out… I was exhausted by the time the last couple showed up so they weren’t as detailed. It was a long day for me - headed out on the first job at 9:30 a.m. and the last of the pirates left my place at 10:38 p.m.
Now… have to wait until Halloween to see what they think up for that!
Yesterday was a busy day. I had three jobs booked. In the morning we painted at the MS Walk. Then I went to the Shark Club to paint their wait staff and managers for Cinco de Mayo.
I didn’t paint many Mexican themed things but here are photos of some of my work:
Most of the ladies went with pretty and sparkles.
And wanted to frame their ink.
The guys all chose tribal designs:
I spent two hours there and then rushed home to my private appointment to paint the dead pirates!
Yesterday we painted at Muskoseepi Park for their annual Easter Eggstravaganza. The park hired six painters in total for this VERY busy event (I was told that there were over 1000 kids – I think she said 1080?) Three were myself and my crew, the other three were individually hired by the park.
The coordinator requested ONLY bunny faces. I gave her some samples of quick designs using daubers that my crew could do and she agreed that the three of us could do those designs and the other three painters would only do full face bunnies.
I’m not a huge fan of full face bunnies – and my two “new” painters were on their first gig! I wanted to make sure we could all do really nice designs at a decent speed and full face bunnies is not the way to do that IMO.
We had a half hour “lesson” practise session on Wednesday and both of them did great on the dauber designs. Then I made up laminated design sheets to show the kids to choose from at the event (am I ever glad I did!)
There were some disappointed kids – the ones who sat down and wanted a tiger, transformer, bat mask, spiderguy, etc… We had to keep explaining that we were ONLY painting the designs on the sheet. Some got up and left rather than settle for a chick or bunny.
I had bought myself one of those clicker counters as I really wanted to know how many I actually painted. I can never remember to keep count. Well… in five hours I painted exactly 100 kids. I would have done more but we spent a lot of time calling “NEXT!” and trying to get them out of line and into our chairs!
Seems that full face bunnies were more attractive to them, so we would get up and go along the queue to find some kids who wanted what we were painting…
Also some of them took a very long time to choose between a chick and a bunny!! I lost a lot of productive time with that. But 3 minutes per kid is pretty good – considering that included getting their tush in the chair, picking a design, parents who insisted on taking a photo before they got out of my chair, etc.
The designs we did were very simple and fast… I admit to mining the forums and Facebook for ideas. All of these were pretty much “stolen” from various sources over the last week. Quick and easy – these are my versions that I painted on myself to photograph to use on my design sheet.
My rainbows on the job were much better as I was using the right brush – a large 1.5′ filbert – and the small Grimas rainbow cake made by Bibi Freeman at FacepaintUK.
I was really impressed with the painting and speed of my “new” crew – Ashley and Jordawna – and I hope they enjoyed doing it too.
Last night I was back at the club that hires me to paint their staff for their theme nights pretty regularly. It is a fun gig.
The staff are always excited to see me and get painted. One of the bartenders pretty much has his shirt off the minute he sees me…. He’s featured on another post from when I painted at their Mardi Gras night last month here.
He always has a specific idea of what he wants. This time it was a large off centre shamrock with a white outline and the Notre Dame logo… which I didn’t know off-hand so I did an angry leprechaun. I think that worked, don’t you?
They are the Fightin’ Irish, right?
He then came back later on a break and wanted something on his arm so I did this:
And this one I call a Shamrock Animal Print… I was sort of going for leopard spots that resemble shamrocks, but not connecting them so it didn’t just look like lots of shamrocks… I quite liked it.
And this one I call an “organic” design as I had no idea what I was doing… I just start adding colour and picking up brushes and it just happened:
And this one I was trying for a celtic knot feel… not sure if I succeeded but I like it.
Now that I look at it, it looks more like my old Army cap badge – the crossed paperclips, LOL.
And this gal told me that I am the only person she lets put make-up on her face… awww. And she models a lot up here for photographers so does all her own make-up.
The next two are pretty standard St. Paddy designs – a leprechaun and rainbow with shamrocks:
Last night I painted at a club that I paint at regularly. They hire me to paint the staff up for holidays and theme nights and I enjoy it very much. Sometimes I stick around to paint the customers too but last night I had to get home (the mom sitter was only booked to 8:30 p.m. and as it was I didn’t get home until 9!)
I will be back there on St. Patrick’s Day and will be staying to paint the customers!
Here are some pictures I managed to remember to take last night. First is one of the bartenders – he gets painted every time.
This really demonstrates how crappy I am at roses… Roses? Yes… there are roses… No really, look at the painting… see those red blobs with the green… [sigh] They are at the ends of the “banner”? You still don’t see them? Nevermind then, forget I mentioned them.
And here is a butterflyish design – she was going to be wearing purple and green when she started her shift:
That’s it… I took a few others but they looked better in person.
Next weekend I will be painting at a soccer jamboree with a crew of three painters and one mom to wash brushes.
Mardi Gras is coming up later in the month (Feb 21st) and already events are themed for it. I painted a couple of ladies yesterday morning for a bonspiel which had a Mardi Gras theme. And there were New Year events that were Mardi Gras themed too.
Yesterday I painted at a stagette and masks were the main request. I don’t take along examples for this type of party. Most of the women have a pretty good idea of what they want or don’t want and tell me. I ask them what colour, or match their clothing or jewelry or shoes, and then just paint whatever seems to form from my sponge or brush. I don’t really think about it; just go with the flow.
Liquid Bling is a main requirement of any mask work, IMO. I go through gold bling like crazy. I actually need more after last night’s gig.
Here are some masks I’ve done by appointment recently. The peacock was copied from a photo she had of an actual mask.
Yesterday was busy. I had two ladies come over so I could paint Mardi Gras masks on them (the two bottom photos above), then I had a Princess and the Frog birthday party, and then the stagette in the evening. And, to make it even more of a workload, we ended up with no care aide for mom for the stagette.
Our regular casual aide wanted to go away for the weekend, so Amy suggested someone who might be interested in some casual hours. I contacted her and she said she would take the Saturday evening shift, so I told Kenisha I had the shift covered so she made her weekend plans.
Then Friday afternoon the “new” person called to bail on us. Said she’d decided she was too busy… so, on about 24 hours notice I call the agency I use for back-up (at $30/hour!)… and they weren’t available… crap. So, I then called a couple of people who have helped out in the past – neither returned my call… so, mom came to the stagette with me.
I wasn’t too comfortable with doing that and the initial plan was that since it was at a restaurant/club we would arrive a bit early, park mom at a table with some food and I would go to the private room and do the 2-hour gig. But mom wasn’t too happy about that plan and figured I should take her as my brush washer like I do for public gigs.
Which is what we ended up doing… managed to use a beer cart as a table that I could roll mom up beside in a corner so she was out-of-the-way and she washed my brushes. The girls were really sweet and kept checking to see if she needed anything. Then when we were ready to leave one of them grabbed my kit and chair and carried them out to the car and loaded them for me too.
I’ll be back at the same club on Mardi Gras painting the staff which is always fun.
Only five more sleeps left of 2011 and then it is 2012. And if you subscribe to that theory about the Mayan calendar we’ve got less than a year left… so make the most of it!
(If you don’t know what I’m referring to check it here.)
I’m just taking a break from doing my bookkeeping. Over the years I’ve perfected my system… I do a whole year’s worth of data entry in 2-3 days between Christmas and New Year. I used to do my books every week – took a couple of hours every weekend to enter and file my receipts and pay bills. Then one year I just kept adding things to the bin… until the year was almost over. I sat down to do all of it at once and it only took a couple days to do it all in a blitz.
So I figured out that two hours a week average was 104 hours spent doing it opposed to spending 16 to 24 hours doing it all at once. I spend an evening or two sorting out the paperwork (bills in chronological order so they are easy to key in), types of payments, bank statements, etc.
It goes pretty fast. The most time-consuming part is entering all the individuals receipts from my Visa card… then I have to reconcile everything: credit cards, bank statements, RSP statements.
It all gets done and then I just have to wait for my T4s and RSP receipts before I take it all to the accountant.
At this point I can say that 2011 was my best year to-date. Haven’t got all the expenses input yet (had a few unexpected such as a new computer, back-up drive, printer) so not sure how it will be in the end, but total gross income is well up.
On Christmas Day I FINALLY got to watch some of the Dr. Who Christmas Specials! All at once as they were running them in a marathon on Space starting at 6 p.m. They don’t show them in the regular schedule so I’ve never seen them. Started with this year’s “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe” and then all of the David Tennant ones… I didn’t stay up for all of them but think I saw five or six. Went to bed around 2 a.m. or so.
We had a nice dinner here – I cooked for 10 people. Mom and I are now eating leftovers for lunch and dinner… breakfast we’re having our usual for a break. I figure we have about another three days of turkey and fixin’s to finish off.
My secret to an awesome turkey dinner? Butterball pre-stuffed frozen turkey! Tender, juicy, stuffing is delicious (just like mom and I USED to make, but now I don’t have to… and no one ever realized I stopped making it!)
And last night I… read a book! Last one I had a chance to read was back in July. Mom wanted to go to bed early and since I am off this week it was okay (if she goes to bed early she starts waking me up around 3 a.m. to use the commode… repeatedly so I won’t let her go to bed until 9 on work nights.) So I had a chance to read. It was really nice. Managed to finish off one nice thick paranormal romance in a couple of hours. And I might read another one tonight! I have a stack of them I haven’t got around to reading yet.
My next gig is theatre – Snow White. Dress rehearsals are the second week of January and then a three-week run.
Right now we’re watching that true classic of the season…. JAWS.
Seems like Christmas parties are getting earlier every year. I’m pretty sure it is because of the venues around town being booked up so people just book when they are available, which is November. I’m booked for quite a few but still have a couple of open dates between now and Christmas Day.
I’ve got my first company party this Friday. I’m not expecting any Christmas requests…
I have a sheet of Christmas/seasonal designs that I add to my boards/book at this time of year in addition to my usual display photos. I use my Christmas themed Design Idea Sheet (you can purchase this laminated and use it too!)
I have extra copies on hand for jobs where I have a crew working so we can all refer to it when the kids are stumped for ideas… not sure why this happens and my display has about 140 images to look at and choose from… but there ya go. Kids are weird.
The snow started yesterday. Cleared my driveway and walk twice already… I’ve been attempting to get someone booked to clear it for us as I just can’t manage it. Being outside with mom in the house for that long is a problem as I can’t hear her call, AND… I suffer. Last night, after clearing it with a push shovel, I woke up with horrible cramps in my upper thighs from kicking the shovel up to knock the snow off.
Tonight I finally got a guy booked and prepaid for four clearings. We call him when we want it done. I will see how that works.
In honour of the upcoming season I thought I would share a design of mine. First time I painted this was on Cat Finlayson-Wilkins at the UK Face & Body Painting Convention in 2007. I re-did it as a step-by-step in 2009 with a bunch of others for a magazine, but sent the others without submitting this.
It is a cute design… I like it. Similar to the very popular Rudolph design, but in Moose form (more common in my part of the country than flying reindeer.) It works well with the nostrils being the moose’s nostrils, and the whole nose being his head.
And I am particularly impressed by how I incorporated my eyebrow as his ruffled fur and the wrinkles under my eye as fur texture… damn I’m good.
Here are a couple of designs I did. Typically I do not have face painting gigs on Remembrance Day so these were done for a contest and at a convention in the past.
In Flanders Fields The Poppies Grow
In The Trenches - WW I
Not something I’d expect to be asked for. But more of a tribute.
I have a sheet of Christmas/seasonal designs that I add to my boards/book at this time of year in addition to my usual display photos. I use my Christmas themed Design Idea Sheet (you can purchase this laminated and use it too!)
