Feb 2015
Like many professional body artists, I often get booked for baby showers/ pregnancy photo packages or just to paint pregnant bellies, and I donate several bump paints to Comic Relief annually (we also make and sell a calendar of our work for them too). Gestational art is quite a big industry now and I’m asked for all sorts of designs – everything from matching nursery decor to where the parents met to things with meaning or parts of the baby name…
This year Comic Relief HQ contacted me & asked if I’d be willing to paint some promo bumps for them to use. I agreed to do 9 bumps as my ‘donation’. It all changed and I was later informed that The Orange Grove Clinic, Yogabubs and Babyfit had organised 40 mums to be!
Slight panic as I had to be at my own specialist bump clinic (I’m expecting in May and am trialling an artificial pancreas system for Cambridge University during pregnancy) that afternoon, and bumps are not 5 minute jobs – they are a LOT bigger than faces so take longer.
Ideally for a custom paint or glitter art I advise at least an hour, it is usually 2 for a decent job. Luckily as these all had to be done with this year’s Red Nose designs I hoped 30 mins-ish would be ok – but still couldn’t finish 40 bumps in a few hours! On my advice CRHQ bought some professional paints and had asked students to help out.
I arrived at the Forum to find a face painter already there, but I was the only face & body artist and was lucky to get to paint the first bump to arrive. I think bumps really do look better in this case if painted with better quality products like the Cameleon paint I prefer (it is much more vibrant, feels nice on and washes off well) by brush and not cheaper paints by sponge. My 1st lady (the snorkel bump) was due that day!
Body Painting by Cat 