Body Paint (Good Taste 18+)

Welcome to my Body Art section of my Blog. I used to love looking at body painted images in face and body art magazines, but couldn’t imagine doing body painting on people. I did my first full body painting at FABAIC in 2009 on Elaine Fortune. Now I have a portfolio on Flickr with a good collection of images of body paintings! It all started when I decided to collaborate with a Brazilian photographer (Pedro de Moraes) a volunteer in training, to raise funds for a photo documentary he wanted to make when he went to do his work in Africa.

I have never felt uncomfortable during the process of painting a model. We talk and I just look at them as a moving, breathing canvas, while concentrating on my design and making sure they are comfortable. Once it is time to take pictures of the models, it is a great feeling seeing my artwork posing on the set. And the biggest rush is seeing the final photos!

You can take body painting in so many different directions, to disguise, transform, enhance, and or compliment a model. The themes are endless, and the color combination’s are endless as well. This fact keeps me up at night plotting my next body painting project!

Here is Elaine in her wild patchwork coat

Pedro de Moraes was the first professional photographer I worked with besides the FABAIC photographer. Since then I have collaborated with Bill from Strome Photography…here is our first creation.

….and Steven Brown from his studio in the Park Trades Center in Kalamazoo where I just did black line work on a body builder…

For fun, my husby and I are practicing at home and just taking shots with his nice camera and our red wall.

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Posted April 28th, 2010 by A.W.

Please Note, the neon pigments in most black light paints have not been tested by the FDA. Most colors have not been approved for cosmetics. The worst we have heard is that they can make your eyes burn, and painters have been using them for decades. If you are trying to go the safest route, avoid using these paints, or use them with paper work so that you are not liable if someone has a reaction, and please keep them away from any mucus membranes. We wish we knew all of this before we used them.

BODY PAINTING with Blacklight is AWESOME! Taking pictures of it can be a little tricky. Here are some tips.

Hang the light source from the ceiling and face into the light.

Take pictures with the lights off, and get as close to the model as you can to reduce the noise (little specs of light showing on the dust will show up in your photos. Noise reduction applications on your photo editing software can reduce this.)

Set your camera to 1600 ISO (Highest setting). If you have a fancy camera set your camera to 1 second exposure time, and the lowest depth of field possible (biggest aperture).

You can use a white poster board or foam board to reflect the black light towards the model to get more coverage of the black light.

If your model moves while you are shooting, the design will distort. You can use this to make cook effects, but if you want a still shot…ask them to hold very still once you click the button.

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May 9th, 2010

WOWIE!! I am soo geeked.

I am soo excited because my Husband, Santiago, has taken a great interest in body painting. I was asked to paint two models for one shoot with Strome Photography, here in my town, so I brought Santi along to help.

He didn’t just help, he painted one of the models after just a little bit of guidance on where to lay out the colors and how to blend them.

We have been having a lot of fun with the dotter sponges…making bubble effects, so Santi wrapped a stream of bubbles around the girl’s body. The DFX Sea Green, Metallix Blue and Mettalix White made her look very aquatic and shimmery, kind of avatarish.

I am so proud that he was brave enough to just go for it, and I am convinced that he has a great eye for color, balance, and blending. What do you think? I always wanted to marry someone who loved this art form as much as I do. Now we can get creative together all the time!

The picture below is the one I did at the same shoot. The girls were quite opposites.

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July 12th, 2010

Art and Body Studios.com is now open! We have successfully put together our own body art and photography studio. We are hoping to market to a wide variety of people who may or may not know how body painting can be a good thing for them! So far, word of mouth and dropping off business cards at local businesses has gotten us started. We just did a body painting of a girl in a foot ball jersey of her boyfriend’s favorite team, as a special birthday present for him.

We live in a college town, so we hope to attract people heading to parties or sporting events, that want to get attention with face and body painting. We also have a lot of local bands and companies that we hope to add as our clients.

Body painting is a whole other world when compared to face painting for parties. Dealing with adults is still coming to me, since I have been used to talking to 5 year olds while I paint. It is nice to see that I can adapt.

Sitting down and planning a complete design, with accessories is quite a lot of fun for my husband and I too. This past week the “cat” challenge finally came. I was asked to paint a woman like a leopard, which to me, seemed a little boring. So Santi practiced painting foliage on my legs for a weekend, and he came up with this cool effect with plants in front, and dark plant shadows behind, coming up the cats body. It added a nice twist to the composition. I also found a brush that has fine fringe, like the brush was cut with a thinning scissors. This made super amazing texture to the cat face. I wish I had time to paint the whole body with the brush, but sponging still is faster for me.

We also came to the conclusion that photo shopping out a nipple is way easier than photo shopping out a bra. For full body paintings, we are only going to paint models that actually want their body painted, not their bras painted. It just makes more sense to me. See what the bra was doing below. It is a hard situation to be firm on this, but it makes the shots look so much better, and the model can move around freely with out worrying about their underwear moving and bra straps falling.

Here is a collage of recent paintings that we have done!

If you haven’t seen this video the Insane Man made of his day as a dead skunk in the road, you have to check it out! Making public statements with body painting can be pretty bizarre, but ooh so much fun!

http://www.youtube.com/user/roadpie#p/a/u/0/GiwXoBNVKfU

Mermaid

Photography: Steven Brown

(Bubble and and Fog Machine helped create this underwater environment)

Model: Sheila K

Bodypainters: Santi and Anna