One of the fundraisers our church participated in this year was face painting. As our church's ...Deaconess of Creativity (this is a super official title) I created face painting designs + signage, communicated with other face painters, and suggested supplies.
And I had never done any of that before.
I was intimidated. But once again, my excitement and desire to help superseded my hesitations and fears. I'd been part of face painting once in my life. ONCE. I was a painter and didn't coordinate a thing. And I'd never done full-face designs. But you know what? It wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be.
We had five artists and roughly a billion kids. (Ok, I think it was 200? I'll have to check and edit this.)
If you're here for the how-to, I've got you covered.
Step One: Select Designs
The painters and I decided it would be best to have a template of sorts. This helps kids and parents make their choice, but it also helps painters have a visual guide for their design. (I'd be lost without this!)
To choose designs, I did a combination of things. I looked up face paint designs on Pinterest and selected a few favorites. I did Google image searches for face paint designs and chose from those. But the best strategy was to ask face painters with some experience what designs were most requested and search for those.
For example, if your group knows you need a unicorn option, do a Google image search for "unicorn drawing" or things like "easy unicorn drawing" or "unicorn cartoon." Then pick from what you think your group could do.
We did a combo of small cheek designs and a few full-face designs. I'd say kids chose the small cheek designs MORE OFTEN than full-face, which was a surprise.
Step Two: Verify with Face Painters
Check with your painters that they are comfortable with the designs. If they aren't as experienced, encourage them, and help them see each design can be broken up into simple shapes. Most of them look harder than they are.
Step Three: Draw the Small Designs
For little cheek designs, draw them out on a piece of paper. I used my kids' magic markers for this. Don't be a perfectionist here.
Step Four: Create + Print Templates
I used Canva to create a sheet with full-face designs as well as a header for the small cheek designs. I also had our logo printed to fill a page. For your full-face designs, save images on your computer. I know, I know, you do not have copyrights to those images. So don't provide them on your website and you'll be ok.
For the cheek design page, I printed out the header and *gasp* taped it to my drawing page. Then I had copies made. The line was nearly invisible.
I laminated everything, something I highly recommend. You'll be able to use them again. They won't get caught by the wind as easily. It's ok if paint splashes on them. Make enough so that painters can show kids these examples as well as work from them.
Step Five: Choose Paint
I did my research and recommended these paint pallets from Amazon. (Sorry, they are no longer available or I'd link it.) Another option is to use acrylic paint. There were so many benefits to using the paint pallets, though, like having everything ready to use, glitter paints, paintbrushes, and the built-in mirror.
YOU GUYS, you will need a mirror to show the kids how they look after! It's a cute moment to see them light up at how they look. And yes, their adults will probably take pictures and show them, but this way you get that positive feedback right away from the child.
Step Six: Admin Stuff
I had administrative help from our Children's Pastor, Tracey, and it was invaluable. She thought of things like bringing cups of water, paper towels, chairs, the sandwich board sign, as well as monitoring the line and guiding kids to their painter, and facilitating face painter breaks for food. It was a lot. If you don't have a Tracey, maybe find a person who can help out in this capacity. (So...get yourself a Tracey!)
Step Seven: Paint the Faces
After these steps, you're ready. Make sure you get some pictures of your work. Have fun!