Are you excited about learning the art of face painting? This ancient and expressive art form is popular all over the world, and remains a favorite activity for festivals and gatherings of all varieties. Many young artists are finding fulfilling entrepreneurship with their face painting skills. Getting started is the hardest part – this quick guide will help you get setup with the equipment you need to learn the basics.
Five Essential Tools of the Trade
Take inspiration from professional-grade face painting supplies and kits. The following five ideas are only the very basics; you’ll definitely want to keep an eye out for other useful options as you progress through practice.
1. Practice Kit
Read all of the face-painting books and how-to guides you can get your hands on. Watch all the instructional videos you can. Buy a practice head from your local beauty shop or face paint retailer. Now you’re ready to get some paints for your new face-shaped canvas.
2. Starter Paints
Find a good color wheel to use until you feel comfortable mixing from primary colors alone. You will want the highest quality paints available (which gets expensive quickly) and that means you may want to start small. Red, yellow, blue, black and white are all you need.
3. Starter Brushes
Round high-density sponges are great for applying base colors, foam wedges are good for medium areas and light blending, curvy and coned sponges create effortless scales and hearts, and tiny round sponges are for polka dots and spheres.
Large, angled brushes are for dramatic strokes and thin firm brushes are for line work and finishing details. Wispy brushes work perfect for fur and feather effects. Does this sound like too many brushes? We suggest starting with an inexpensive kit to cover the essentials – you can always invest in specialty brushes and sponges later.
4. Accessories
Before you can move onto real faces, you’ll want a few helpful accessories. Have plenty of hair ties and headbands on hand at all times. Brush caddies, supply totes, water buckets, washrags… the list of essential accessories could go on forever. Your collection is sure to grow as you gain more practice hours.
5. Cleanup
The cleaning up process requires almost as much skill as the painting part. Every brand and color of face paint behaves differently when it encounters clothing, water, or facial cleansers. Read (and save) the suggested removal instructions included with every paint cake you purchase. Listen to your future clients when they give feedback about facial cleansers because every skin type is different, and nobody wants a stained face.
Just keep painting. The best way to build your face painting kit is to keep practicing with the tools you have until you realize something is missing. Keep practicing until you find a pattern too complicated for your current supplies to handle. Master the tools you own before exploring utensils you may not need – many professional face painters are quick to tell you that the basics have always served them well.
