PRIDE London eco glitter face & body art

January 31, 2019January 31, 2019 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in Clubbing, corporate face painting, Face Painting, festival face painting, Glitter Tattoos, Uncategorized

This was a lovely booking from @beyondrepair dance company. Their client had booked the roof terrace and 2nd floor of Jamie’s Italian in London Piccadilly for their own pride/ football party above the crowds.

It is actually now faster AND easier for me to get into central London from Bath Spa (my nearest train station then) than it was when I lived ‘in’ London!

I knew Pride In London and other events on that day would mean public transport would be awful, especially with my full kit box and tall makeup chair, so I took along my trusty wheeled trolley wagon.

As expected my nice taxi driver had to drop my about half way to Piccadilly, and leave me amongst the millionaires clothes shopping in New Bond Street (its the world’s most expensive shopping street, FYI) to tow my kit to the restaurant. As I was in full homemade rainbow outfit (I’ll do a blog on that) I didn’t fit in well…

All was going well until I realised I still had to cross Regent Street… which meant crossing the parade! It took about 30 minutes to get to the front of the crowd at one of the designated crossing points, and a bit longer until a gap in the parade allowed myself and some late wedding guests to dash over.

I was set up in a lovely corner looking down 1 street to the Pride crowds, and the other street to crowds watching the important football match on giant screens.

The clients were fab, sadly though they offered me some of the lovely food they were all grazing on I was too busy from start to finish to stop and eat! Some had already been DIY face painting with a rainbow stripe stick.

These designs were all freehand or using the #cutbycat stencils available from my own shop and PaintopiaBodyArtSupplies

I finished my shift and started heading back to the station; as before no taxis and still some crowds and the tail end of the Pride parade to negotiate – all very colourful! I got some Churros as my treat whilst waiting for the train home.

Feb 2018 Once Upon A time Makeup Bodypaint Demo Look

March 14, 2018January 31, 2019 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in cricut, Face Painting, Paintopia, Paper crafts, Uncategorized

I was able to attend the annual Paradise Wildlife Face Painting Jam, which this year had a ‘Once Upon A time’ theme. Organiser Juliet Eve asked if I’d do a freehand glitter tattoo demo, and I decided the demo could be part of a bodypaint I did there. AND there was a head-piece competition so I thought I’d enter that at the same time.

I always like to push myself to try new things, and immediately thought; story books – writing on skin! I hated graphics (the lettering side) when I was at college and have rarely seen well-executed wording on faces so tried to work out how to do that. I didn’t have the time or skills as yet (I really need to do a hairdressing course!) so was also trying to think what I could put on my models’ hair to go with the theme. Then I suddenly thought – a paper wig!

The last #paperwig I made was in 2014 for the Paintopia Professor’s Apprentice Competition in which Nicky Gardener & I placed 2nd. That theme was Vintage Children’s books – not dissimilar – and we chose Treasure Island. I’d designed a wig made from paper quilling strips, which on the day it turned out we had to slice open, as our model was sick and she was replaced by the much larger James. Who rocked it and completed our awesome team!

Anyway, I decided this time vintage paper would look best, and bought some post-war story books from a charity shop. Lots of slicing later I had a sort of Rapunzel wig. I made lots of paper flowers on my crciut to adorn it, a bit like the Tangled Princess look.

I’m now designing and making stencils (and can do custom stencils too) which Jennie planned to launch as #CutByCat at the Jam as part of her Paintopia Face & Body Painting Supplies shop. So, I made a bunch of custom stencils of fairytale phrases, and also cut them out of glitter card to form part of the wig, and a crown on Izabella.

Izabella was free to be my model, and kindly said she’d meet us there Monday morning. My mum agreed to wrangle my 2 boys at the Paradise Wildlife Park (a zoo that hosts the event) so we drove down through snowy gales the night before to meet up with Paintopia Jenn in nearby hotel. I did try to start assembling my wig before bed, but luckily realised I actually had to have it bare so I could firmly attach it to Iz’s hair before I assembled all the other bits! Euan refused to let Jennie leave our room, so with that and loud music from other rooms it was a loooong night…

The snow had stopped but we collected a very chilly Iz from the station before arriving at the bright but freezing marquee that always contains the Jam. After greeting lots of familiar faces, I set up and started getting the paper wig onto Izabela. It was shallower than my previous attempt (I’d built up the bouffant bit of the ships figurehead wig with plastic bags which I guess we just ripped out to fit James’ head). Luckily, all the paper flowers I had made to decorate the Rapunzel paper plait filled in the forhead space perfectly.

Arranging and attaching all the glittery words took a lot longer than I expected, plus I was chatting and answering questions, so by the time the judging for the headpiece competition started I’d only managed a hint of colour over the white base on Izabella. We were really happy to place 2nd and win some fantastic brushes from the Bodycraft Festival team, thanks so much!

Suzanna Forrister-Beer had the most amazing prosthetic Special FX horns on her husband and came first, just beautiful. Also lovely was the kids entertainment, my youngest was boogying on down…

I continued adding mainly Cameleon Bodypaint from the Paintopia shop, layering lettering and stencils and blending with Kryolan powders. I stuck to white, blues and black as I wanted an almost monochrome book-like feel to it.

Last of all I added some quick hand painted swirls, then some freehand glitter tattoos using the waterbased Mouldlife Aquafix in the bottles with fine tips I sell. Finishing touches were flat backed pearls and tiny accent flowers from Hobbycraft.

These 4 photos by www.apheadshotphotgraphy.co.uk

And finally the image in my head of Izabella peerg throught the ‘O’ on Once Upon A time was out in reality.

Paintopia Jenn put together a fab vlog on it too.

(Yes my hair is a mess I kept stuffing on a hat when going out to check my snowy kids!)

Huge thanks to all involved, the organisers and everyone who came to talk to me or shop with Paintopia. I had a great time chatting (though not as much chat as usual as I was full of cold) and my family loved the zoo and entertainment as usual!

My final clip of Izabella is here:

https://youtu.be/4gpMXtj7YO4

Face painted butterflies & flowers

July 7, 2017July 7, 2017 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in Face Painting

I’m always being asked for photos of past designs,

so I’ll start putting up some of my face paints through the ages… all by me!

Easter Face Paints & Cancer Charity face painting for Tesco

April 10, 2017January 31, 2019 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in corporate face painting, Face Paint Tips & tricks, Face Painting, Uncategorized

This was a lovely booking, over 2 different weekends for Mel’s face paint company.

We were set up (Claudia and myself) in the foyer of Poole Tesco, with 2 other ladies doing related crafts beside us.

It was sometimes a bit difficult to encourage customers to stop and be painted (for donations into the cancer charity bucket) but everyone that did was lovely.

And the staff really joined in.

Training holiday staff at Butlins to face paint

April 10, 2017January 31, 2019 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in corporate face painting, Demo/ Workshop Bodypaint, Face Paint Tips & tricks, Face Paint training, Face Painting

I have just had my annual trip up to sunny Skegness to train, refresh and enthuse their holiday entertainment staff in the art of face & bodypainting.

As usual the chalet I stayed overnight in – a flat really – was lovely, I have been in a different style/ zone each trip. (I also did the glitter weekend here for a Rave Weekender in the winter so have tried them all now).

This time we did our workshop in the rather luxurious spa which was cosy, warm and bright despite the changing weather. Although sea gulls fighting on the glass roof was a bit noisy and definitely odd to see from below!

On my advice they have added a large selection of stencils from Illusion Magazine Shop to their kits, as well as Cameleon petal brushes and some other professional essentials from the Paintopia Shop.

Their manager is impressed with how their skills have built since I started training with them so do pop in if you are there on holiday and let the ladies decorate you!

Scottish Facepaints for Bristol kids ceilidh Syria fundraiser

February 8, 2017February 8, 2017 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in Dance Costumes MakeUp, Face Painting

Jan 2017

I volunteered to facepaint for The Little Haggis Hoolie Syria Medical Aid Fundriaser, as the horrible images and tales coming out of Syria have been haunting me and I wanted to donate more than clothes.

This fabulous sold-out charity event in Bristol was organised by Kathryn Jeffs & co, (an old BSc Biological Imaging University of Derby friend of mine – see her bump paint tree of life I did a few years back) and she had a host of amazing volunteers and talent there.

My mum lives in Bristol so brought along my boys – I’m not sure she will agree to that again as my youngest, 20 month Euan, is a total live wire now and never stopped running. He was in his first ‘proper’ kilt (Royal Stuart not my own green Farquharson) as he’s outgrown my baby one and isn’t into our own tartan proper kilts yet. Sadly we forgot or didn’t manage to get his cute wee sporran on – he’s loved that and stuffs it with cars all the time. Finley again wore his grandad Finlayson’s boyhood kilt with trousers…too cool for school.

Anyway the hall looked amazing decorated with fairy lights and the handmade tartan bunting. People were hard at work in the haggis dept, boiling vats of tatties for the mash and making very scrummy orange mush (usually its mashed turnips – neeps – but this actually tasted NICE I must ask what was in it – sweet potatoes and carrots maybe?). Euan, especially, stuffed it down.

Bubble art, shield-making tables, the Explorer Dome (I really want to see that!) and the fab ballon twisting skills of were also on offer. I had doodled a few quick scottish facepaints on my FAB wipeable board and ended up mainly doing the more colourful ones as there was another lovely lady called Ros there with blue & white paints who kindly did the ‘brave’ (Mel Gibson) inspired ones, saltires and saltire butterflies. I did lots of celtic foreheads, heathery crowns, Nessies etc.

Fin hiding behind his shield

Guests were piped in which did give some of them a fright but I love a good bit of bagpipes (go and see acts like the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, hearing rock and metal and pop done on them is amazing).

Later on they had a very gentle ceilidh band doing lovely simple dances with the kids – gentle as no pipes/ accordion I guess, more flute etc. Euan and the rest adored it. Skye Meredith, Storyteller looked wonderful but I couldn’t hear her from where I was.

This made me laugh – Euan’s standoff against the hordes before the 1st dance, and later threatening them with his balloons…

Fab event and my boys still have their lovely balloons from the Pick-n-Mix balloonist. And overjoyed to hear everyone raised over £9000 for the medics working in Syria. A brilliant effort, well done to all x

Glitter Eyes in Bath Southgate Shopping Mall – Walkabout Face Painting Kit for Student Night

November 3, 2016November 8, 2016 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in Body Paint, Clubbing, corporate face painting, Face Paint Tips & tricks, Face Painting, festival face painting

This was an unusual booking; the client wanted ‘walkabout’ mobile painting at an outdoor event in Bath’s Southgate Shopping Mall.

I did a few mobile gigs when I lived in Hong Kong about 11 years ago, walking up to decorate guests at dinner tables or around in bars, and they never seemed as successful (to me) as when I have my kit set up on a table with a tall client chair. But I have done a few since then, so it can be done, but I had a think on a new kit setup…

I used to have the Snazaroo walkabout ‘ kit wheel’ which you gripped in one hand, but found that too heavy and cumbersome. Plus you really need both hands free, one to work, one to steady/ rest on the customer as standing people are even more likely to wibble about than seated!

So, I created a walkabout kit that fitted into an old face paint bag I converted into an apron, with a few extra bits. Not the most stylish but handsfree and pretty comfy apart from when I dropped it all at one point! I’ll tweak it a bit before the next booking as some things I ordered to make it didn’t arrive in time…

Basically its 2 of the magnetic panels I use in my face paint kit, taped together, taped onto 2 of the Ikea pots I sometimes use as brush holders which fitted tightly into the ‘apron’ pocket.

The paints (mainly one strokes and mini black, white & skin tones) I already have with magnets on their bottoms, so they sat nicely on the panels. The new Pixie gels I’d decanted into bottles that sat tip down in a nail varnish holder inside one of the Ikea pots, with space for brushes in the middle. A bag of sponges, a ring of stencils (I didn’t use either in the end) and a facecloth clipped onto the apron and my water spray & glitter were in a side pocket.

Helen’s red snazaroo wheel & my kit as we warmed up hands with hot mochas before the start!

I’d got the lovely Helen hired too, (she ended up with a tired arm from her Snazaroo wheel) so we arrived to find that it was outside and a bit chilly… a special Student Shopping Night promo in the Southgate Shopping Precinct. Its funny as I do lots of student club body art/ face painting bookings but sober, ready-to-shop students were very different! We started by working down the huge entry queue and did eventually have our own little queues going.

I stuck to using the new Pixie Cosmetic glitter gels around simple eye abstract or flowers as that is what most people wanted. All the stencils and extra paints I had squeezed in were not needed! Various acts and stalls were set up and the Scare crew from Avon Valley Wildlife & Adventure Park kept making clients jump, but we wanted to follow around their evil clown as he had a real flamethrower which was cosy!

The kit worked reasonably well but I need to re-think the brush holder being under the paints – my fingers got horribly messy as I kept having to grab the brushes by their painty tips to reach them. I have an idea for a brush holder for next time…

Not many photos as we were so busy & it was dark, but an interesting evening!

Halloween Face Painting at parties, raves and bars -Taunton, Bristol & Bath

November 1, 2016November 1, 2016 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in Body Paint, BodyPainted Staff Servers, Clubbing, evening Ball Entertainment, Face Painting, Halloween

Well as usual Spooky Season is very VERY busy with me trying to fill as many bookings as possible.

For once I change my costume and was a Star-Wars dressed (my mum adapted the skirt from a lovely dress I found) Day of the Dead sugar skull. I made the flower headdress myself and created sleeves from fancy socks…

I’d left home early for a private face paint booking in Bath, then by 12 was setting up at the ‘Big Fish Little Fish” Family Rave to offer face paint & body art to the children and parents there.

Last pic of my work is from their website

I’d been asked to do a ‘menu board’ as that is what was usually offered at their events, and loved the FAB Wipeable Boards Sarah sells for this. The light wasn’t fab & I was too busy to take many photos but it was a great and very busy event.

Once finished I packed up and drove to Mambo’s Taunton – getting held up in RTA Traffic on the motorway I dashed my kit through the town to get set up on time. I had to re-do my kiddy-friendly sugar skull face as I’d messed it up in my dash.

Mambos’ had Katie Price (once aka Jordan) DJ’ing in their VIP lounge and a huge Voodoo Party going on – the decorations were fab. The staff had gone all out with costumes and some really got into their look! Even though I was painting outside, it wasn’t actually nippy until about midnight which was great. LOADS of sugar skulls requested, I’m glad to see that culture finally overtaking the vindictive Trick or Treat styles.

I also saw a lot of the usual awful stuff smeared on (cheap paints are pointless – hard to get on, impossible to make look good, often impossible to get off too even if they don’t look bright on!) but some pretty amazing DIY efforts too.

Sunday I had another party but can’t post the pics up of course, shame as there were some fun ones!

Hope you all had a fab time!

Hand -animals Painting for WWF-UK #WearitWild #GiveAHandToWildlife 2016 Bath face painter Bristol body artist

May 19, 2016October 26, 2016 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in animal zoo face paint, Face Painting, Hand Painting

https://wearitwild.wwf.org.uk/news/giveahandtowildlife/?_ga=1.180938471.1381375318.1462310016

I’d just moved to Bath (boo – bad timing with Paintopia coming up!) so drove back to Norfolk on Monday night in torrential rain and crashed in Jennies’ office on her very comfy Tim Burton sheets.

The next morning, still in rain, I drove to Kings Lynn to take a booking I’d managed to squeeze in whilst I was up. The WWF-UK had contacted asking if I could create Guido Danielle or Emma Cammack style hand-art on a school they loved working with.

They had hired Anna Lingis to do studio shots of some hand-imals, and I was to do my own launch examples on kids. We agreed on simpler faster designs as I know the exquisite examples they sent me took hours, and didn’t think I or the children would have the patience/ time.

The school was amazing, all decorated throughout with various themes, from Bewilderwood stairs mural to a Hogwarts library – and the headmasters’ hall was entered via a Tardis then became a Dr Who homage!

In the hopes it would brighten we decided to set up under their outdoor eco pod, a sort of large wooden open gazebo (sadly it rained harder). I had a small group of Year 3s to decorate and they set to on their ipads (every pupil gets one) to look up images of their favourite animal, preferably from the endangered list WWF-UK had sent.

I began with a panda on the back of a hand, and was able to chat about the pandas I saw every week with my youngest son when we lived in Hong Kong and had a season ticket for Ocean Park there.

A lot of the time it was so warm that keepers had rigged up ‘refriger-rocks’ that the pandas lay on or hugged to cool off. The kids googled to find out what pandas ate when they couldn’t answer that one.

Next came a snow leopard.

Colin, who was on my Biological Imaging Bsc with me many years ago, became a wildlife film-maker who shot a stunning episode on them, so we chatted about those too. I couldn’t quite recall what eye colour they had& the photos I had varied, so we went yellowish but now I’m thinking blue….

After that I did a mountain gorilla. I knew a bit about them from researching an unused design for the Norwich GoGoGorillas statues I painted for Break Charity/ Wild in Art.

Then a jaguar. I was lucky enough to grow up in Belize near the worlds 1^st Jaguar reserve and had read Alan’s book on it. I’ve never seen one wild, just a fresh footprint so new it was still filling with water on a soggy jungle path.

The dolphin was harder; it was an awkward pose to fold in fingers and open the ‘mouth’ but it just about worked. I didn’t want all the pics to be of the back of hands so was trying to be a bit more creative! Again we’d played with wild dolphins in Belize so I could talk about them.

Then I had daft stories about tigers ….

…. and giraffes from when I was the Education officer for Banham Zoo & Africa Alive.

A quick elephant finished off the designs.

By that time we were all wet and frozen as the weather hadn’t improved, so the kids went off to their late lunch.

But very happy to do something so creative and fun that would also be used to help save species.

#WearItWild is on Friday 27th May and we’re challenging you to get creative and #GiveAHandToWidlife.

The photos on here were taken by myself, assorted press and the lovely ladies from WWF-UK.

More press here

Bee Honeycomb Neck Art Body Paint & Facepainting by Bath face painter Bristol body artist

January 20, 2016October 26, 2016 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in animal zoo face paint, Body Paint, Face Painting

Jan 2015

This was an idea for something a publication asked for that didn’t get used in the end, and I forgot to put it up until now.

The tiny paper eyelashes inspired me as well as all the awful warnings about bee deaths due to pesticides etc – without bees so many crops won’t get pollinated, its a huge problem.

Share this:

Like this:

Anyway, I decided this time vintage paper would look best, and bought some post-war story books from a charity shop. Lots of slicing later I had a sort of Rapunzel wig. I made lots of paper flowers on my crciut to adorn it, a bit like the Tangled Princess look.

Suzanna Forrister-Beer had the most amazing prosthetic Special FX horns on her husband and came first, just beautiful. Also lovely was the kids entertainment, my youngest was boogying on down…

I continued adding mainly Cameleon Bodypaint from the Paintopia shop, layering lettering and stencils and blending with Kryolan powders. I stuck to white, blues and black as I wanted an almost monochrome book-like feel to it.

Last of all I added some quick hand painted swirls, then some freehand glitter tattoos using the waterbased Mouldlife Aquafix in the bottles with fine tips I sell. Finishing touches were flat backed pearls and tiny accent flowers from Hobbycraft.

And finally the image in my head of Izabella peerg throught the ‘O’ on Once Upon A time was out in reality.

Paintopia Jenn put together a fab vlog on it too.

(Yes my hair is a mess I kept stuffing on a hat when going out to check my snowy kids!)

Huge thanks to all involved, the organisers and everyone who came to talk to me or shop with Paintopia. I had a great time chatting (though not as much chat as usual as I was full of cold) and my family loved the zoo and entertainment as usual!

My final clip of Izabella is here:

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I’m always being asked for photos of past designs,

so I’ll start putting up some of my face paints through the ages… all by me!

Share this:

Like this:

This was a lovely booking, over 2 different weekends for Mel’s face paint company.

We were set up (Claudia and myself) in the foyer of Poole Tesco, with 2 other ladies doing related crafts beside us.

It was sometimes a bit difficult to encourage customers to stop and be painted (for donations into the cancer charity bucket) but everyone that did was lovely.

And the staff really joined in.

Share this:

Like this:

I have just had my annual trip up to sunny Skegness to train, refresh and enthuse their holiday entertainment staff in the art of face & bodypainting.

As usual the chalet I stayed overnight in – a flat really – was lovely, I have been in a different style/ zone each trip. (I also did the glitter weekend here for a Rave Weekender in the winter so have tried them all now).

This time we did our workshop in the rather luxurious spa which was cosy, warm and bright despite the changing weather. Although sea gulls fighting on the glass roof was a bit noisy and definitely odd to see from below!

On my advice they have added a large selection of stencils from Illusion Magazine Shop to their kits, as well as Cameleon petal brushes and some other professional essentials from the Paintopia Shop.

Their manager is impressed with how their skills have built since I started training with them so do pop in if you are there on holiday and let the ladies decorate you!

Share this:

Like this:

Jan 2017

I volunteered to facepaint for The Little Haggis Hoolie Syria Medical Aid Fundriaser, as the horrible images and tales coming out of Syria have been haunting me and I wanted to donate more than clothes.

This fabulous sold-out charity event in Bristol was organised by Kathryn Jeffs & co, (an old BSc Biological Imaging University of Derby friend of mine – see her bump paint tree of life I did a few years back) and she had a host of amazing volunteers and talent there.

Fin hiding behind his shield

Guests were piped in which did give some of them a fright but I love a good bit of bagpipes (go and see acts like the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, hearing rock and metal and pop done on them is amazing).

Later on they had a very gentle ceilidh band doing lovely simple dances with the kids – gentle as no pipes/ accordion I guess, more flute etc. Euan and the rest adored it. Skye Meredith, Storyteller looked wonderful but I couldn’t hear her from where I was.

This made me laugh – Euan’s standoff against the hordes before the 1st dance, and later threatening them with his balloons…

Fab event and my boys still have their lovely balloons from the Pick-n-Mix balloonist. And overjoyed to hear everyone raised over £9000 for the medics working in Syria. A brilliant effort, well done to all x

Share this:

Like this:

This was an unusual booking; the client wanted ‘walkabout’ mobile painting at an outdoor event in Bath’s Southgate Shopping Mall.

I used to have the Snazaroo walkabout ‘ kit wheel’ which you gripped in one hand, but found that too heavy and cumbersome. Plus you really need both hands free, one to work, one to steady/ rest on the customer as standing people are even more likely to wibble about than seated!

Basically its 2 of the magnetic panels I use in my face paint kit, taped together, taped onto 2 of the Ikea pots I sometimes use as brush holders which fitted tightly into the ‘apron’ pocket.

The kit worked reasonably well but I need to re-think the brush holder being under the paints – my fingers got horribly messy as I kept having to grab the brushes by their painty tips to reach them. I have an idea for a brush holder for next time…

Not many photos as we were so busy & it was dark, but an interesting evening!

Share this:

Like this:

Well as usual Spooky Season is very VERY busy with me trying to fill as many bookings as possible.

For once I change my costume and was a Star-Wars dressed (my mum adapted the skirt from a lovely dress I found) Day of the Dead sugar skull. I made the flower headdress myself and created sleeves from fancy socks…

I’d left home early for a private face paint booking in Bath, then by 12 was setting up at the ‘Big Fish Little Fish” Family Rave to offer face paint & body art to the children and parents there.

I’d been asked to do a ‘menu board’ as that is what was usually offered at their events, and loved the FAB Wipeable Boards Sarah sells for this. The light wasn’t fab & I was too busy to take many photos but it was a great and very busy event.

Once finished I packed up and drove to Mambo’s Taunton – getting held up in RTA Traffic on the motorway I dashed my kit through the town to get set up on time. I had to re-do my kiddy-friendly sugar skull face as I’d messed it up in my dash.

I also saw a lot of the usual awful stuff smeared on (cheap paints are pointless – hard to get on, impossible to make look good, often impossible to get off too even if they don’t look bright on!) but some pretty amazing DIY efforts too.

Sunday I had another party but can’t post the pics up of course, shame as there were some fun ones!

Hope you all had a fab time!

Share this:

Like this:

I’d just moved to Bath (boo – bad timing with Paintopia coming up!) so drove back to Norfolk on Monday night in torrential rain and crashed in Jennies’ office on her very comfy Tim Burton sheets.

The next morning, still in rain, I drove to Kings Lynn to take a booking I’d managed to squeeze in whilst I was up. The WWF-UK had contacted asking if I could create Guido Danielle or Emma Cammack style hand-art on a school they loved working with.

They had hired Anna Lingis to do studio shots of some hand-imals, and I was to do my own launch examples on kids. We agreed on simpler faster designs as I know the exquisite examples they sent me took hours, and didn’t think I or the children would have the patience/ time.

The school was amazing, all decorated throughout with various themes, from Bewilderwood stairs mural to a Hogwarts library – and the headmasters’ hall was entered via a Tardis then became a Dr Who homage!

I began with a panda on the back of a hand, and was able to chat about the pandas I saw every week with my youngest son when we lived in Hong Kong and had a season ticket for Ocean Park there.

A lot of the time it was so warm that keepers had rigged up ‘refriger-rocks’ that the pandas lay on or hugged to cool off. The kids googled to find out what pandas ate when they couldn’t answer that one.

Next came a snow leopard.

Colin, who was on my Biological Imaging Bsc with me many years ago, became a wildlife film-maker who shot a stunning episode on them, so we chatted about those too. I couldn’t quite recall what eye colour they had& the photos I had varied, so we went yellowish but now I’m thinking blue….

After that I did a mountain gorilla. I knew a bit about them from researching an unused design for the Norwich GoGoGorillas statues I painted for Break Charity/ Wild in Art.

Then a jaguar. I was lucky enough to grow up in Belize near the worlds 1st Jaguar reserve and had read Alan’s book on it. I’ve never seen one wild, just a fresh footprint so new it was still filling with water on a soggy jungle path.

The dolphin was harder; it was an awkward pose to fold in fingers and open the ‘mouth’ but it just about worked. I didn’t want all the pics to be of the back of hands so was trying to be a bit more creative! Again we’d played with wild dolphins in Belize so I could talk about them.

Then I had daft stories about tigers ….

…. and giraffes from when I was the Education officer for Banham Zoo & Africa Alive.

A quick elephant finished off the designs.

By that time we were all wet and frozen as the weather hadn’t improved, so the kids went off to their late lunch.

But very happy to do something so creative and fun that would also be used to help save species.

#WearItWild is on Friday 27th May and we’re challenging you to get creative and #GiveAHandToWidlife.

The photos on here were taken by myself, assorted press and the lovely ladies from WWF-UK.

Share this:

Like this:

Jan 2015

This was an idea for something a publication asked for that didn’t get used in the end, and I forgot to put it up until now.

The tiny paper eyelashes inspired me as well as all the awful warnings about bee deaths due to pesticides etc – without bees so many crops won’t get pollinated, its a huge problem.

Then a jaguar. I was lucky enough to grow up in Belize near the worlds 1^st Jaguar reserve and had read Alan’s book on it. I’ve never seen one wild, just a fresh footprint so new it was still filling with water on a soggy jungle path.