#bodypainterbristol – Body Painting by Cat

Cricut UK Crafter of the Month ‘Burgundy Butterfly’ Fairy face & body paint

June 14, 2018January 31, 2019 by BodypaintingbyCat, posted in cricut, Timelapse

As said in the Chasing Coral post, I’m delighted to have been asked by Cricut UK to demo what I do with their machine – I own a Cricut Explore Air and am saving for a Cricut Maker.

This time model Izabela fancied something pink and pretty. She likes insects and I thought a butterfly look might be more interesting for people who have kids or need fancy dress/ festival ideas etc.

I’d an idea of a flapper-festival-fairy sort of thing so that is what I created.

All photos taken by myself on my phone this time so do excuse the quality!

Short timelapse and final photos:

I found several free clipart jpegs of butterfly wings online, and I played around with them in Cricut Design Space (CDS). I strengthened veins and added cut out shapes as well as joining up any ‘loose’ ends.

I arranged my chosen wing on the CDS matt as single wings (mirroring it so I could do symmetrical headgear), as pairs like a real butterfly, and welded into strips like butterfly lace.

I positioned as many as possible into the size & shape of the material I wanted to cut them from and attached them before cutting with my Cricut Explore Air in assorted sizes and materials.

This time I added in cuts from the Vellum Cricut sent: I loved the translucent effect. I need to play with my settings a little as it didn’t always weed out as neatly as I liked, but it did take the intricate design fairly well, even the tiny wings.

My new fave material is the Cricut sparkle paper which is like a heavy glitter cardstock. The glitter card I usually use (the A4 glitter card packs from Hobbycraft) has a granular finish, but this has a thick smooth glossy top layer over the glitter. It makes it seem very strong and is another great texture, which took the wing cuts amazingly well.

Cricut Sparkle card in dark pink & Hobbycraft white glitter card

The Cricut corrugated pastel cardboard did look fab with its striped pattern, but again I will fiddle with my settings a bit, as I found that when weeding (Ok I wasn’t being incredibly careful as I had a deadline), tiny uncut areas would peel off the back colour revealing the white underneath which was a bit annoying. I am sure you can’t see it in the photos, but it meant those wings were not truly double-sided colour, which would have been better.

The Cricut opal sticky back vinyl as well – ooooh I love it! Pinky-blue pearly almost neon flashes in some lights, stunning. It took even the tiniest wing details too, but urgh weeding that small is a faff. Worth it though I think. As it was stuck onto other layers and over paint, its fine on the skin but not something I would adhere directly as it is not a cosmetic product. So pretty!

I repeated the single wing and butterfly chain patterns as stencils cut from mylar.

After basing Izabela with Cameleon face paint reds blended through pinks to whites, I stencilled the butterfly chain along her upper chest using a darker burgundy.

Then loading my sponge with a home-made ‘rainbow’ split cake in pinks and golds, I stencilled the large wing patterns onto her face and smaller butterflies all over her neck.

Most of my time was then spent pinning and gluing the Cricut cut-outs onto her. Any bits glued onto her skin I used cosmetic water based adhesive, which we remove with baby oil or rubbing alcohol when it has dried and we are finished with the look.

And there we have it; I love the layered wing headband/ bunches look and will be using the Cricut leathers etc to make myself a more permanent set for working at festivals, I think!

Thanks to Izabela, the Cricut UK team, and my youngest, who was unexpectedly home and was really good. He sat like an angel for his 1st ever face paint after watching the whole shoot, and begged to be a dinosaur…

I’ve a 10 hour booking in an ‘immersive rave wonderland’ this weekend and I may wear the headwings in the hope I’ll fit in more with the youngsters I’m decorating!

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

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