Arrrrrrh, zombie pirates ahoy! or… NZ Body Art Awards, Kara style

Posted on Aug 19, 2010 08:14:59 PM

I was asked to paint in the Media Launch for the NZ Body Art Awards this year.  Fun right? Yup.

I was a little nervous, couldn’t really think of what to do on the theme on short notice.  The theme this year is Incredible India.  Then the lovely Mem Bourke let me know that it didn’t have to be themed and I could do a pirate or horror or whatever I wanted.

I missed that last part because my brain combined horror and pirate and shorted out.  I mean, come on, ZOMBIE PIRATE!?! Eeeee! Pirates of the Carribean FTW!  Happy, happy, joy, joy.   So, I showed up at the Mayor’s Office with my painting kit, several belts, a headscarf and a large rusty scimitar.  Honestly, being a larper is so very handy sometimes. I met my model, a Maori fellow with long curly hair and no front teeth!  How perfect is this?   Well, ok, traditionally, pirates aren’t Maori, but they DO have long scruffy hair and bad teeth, right?

Once again, I sob and swear because I forgot my camera and had to take pics of my work on my phone. My phone is new and the camera on it sucks.  I should probably rename my website “The Pictureless Painter”.  Here are a few I managed to get, blurry and grainy as they are, they’re better than nuffin.

Lesson du jour: Staple camera to my forehead from now on. 

The Business of Art, or, How to get out of your own way!

Posted on Jun 25, 2010 11:23:52 AM

5 things you need to sell your art and 5 things you DO NOT need to sell your art.  Probably something every artist in the world needs to read!  I wish I’d written it.

http://lateralaction.com/articles/sell-your-art/

The Face and Body Art International Convention is over – I’m not jealous

Posted on Jun 10, 2010 06:31:13 PM

much…

In truth I’m highly amused.  The hotel that hosted the FABAIC this year charged an extra cleaning fee to the organisers.  Now with many conventions, it might have been for drunk and disorderly behaviour, vandalism and furniture wreckage, but not us. Not body artists.   We (can I be inclusive even though I didn’t get to go?) got a “Glitter Cleanup Fee.”  lol.  Apparently there was glitter EVERYWHERE. 

This makes me really happy for some reason.  Artists are good people. 

While I’m nattering on about it, Yolanda from BodyFx won the competition at the Fabaic. Yay!  Congrats!

Goodness, they’ve got registration for next year up already!  Guess I’d best start stalking the airline specials.

Dramatic Reading of a Breakup Letter

Posted on Jun 5, 2010 12:55:11 AM

I have no idea why this is out there on the interwebs… except to make my sides hurt on an otherwise boring night when I’ve eaten way too much sugar.  So, instead of doing anything artistic, I shall share the funny. 

http://youmakemetouchyourhandsforstupidreasons.ytmnd.com/

A is for Alice on Anzac Day

Posted on Apr 25, 2010 07:59:19 PM

I thought I’d do an “A” based facepaint. Potentially with a view to doing the rest of the letters of the alphabet too. Now, it’s Anzac Day today, so it occurred to me that I should probably do an Anzac Day facepaint, maybe with poppies or soldiers or some such thing.
Unfortunately, that only occurred to me this morning,so I’m going to be an unpatriotic wench and do Alice in Wonderland instead.  It took me a while but I finally came up with a design I liked  which is definitely “Alice in Wonderland” and also fits reasonably well on a face.

I took photos from different angles and it actually scared me a bit because the smile follows you…

Happy Anzac Day everyone.

Mehndi, facepaint style

Posted on Apr 20, 2010 01:42:00 PM

I love learning new skills, so I was pretty excited when I got an email from a lovely lady organising a Bollywood party for her daughter. She wanted temporary Mehndi designs for the young guests.

I have seen mehndi before and been fascinated by the intricacy of the designs, but I never thought to try it in paint.  It turns out that it takes quite a while to produce those whole hands / arms /feet that they do for brides.  However, we came up with a few simplified ideas that we could apply to the party guests in the standard five minutes.  It was a hit!  I think I may add “Pretendi Mehndi” to my repetoire!

Halloween – not so pretty, actually

Posted on Nov 1, 2009 07:26:00 AM

I promised, so even though it’s Halloween… here’s a pretty fairy and a gorgeous wee angel.  See, not everybody wants to be hideous on Halloween.

  

 

But most people do, so here’s the parade of the damaged, the dead and the ugly.   Lara Croft had a particularly bad day.

 

 

I called this picture Death of a Salesman. Imagine if he showed up at the door.   I reckon I’d buy just to make him go away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And apparently this guy forgot to bring flowers for his girlfriend…

domestic violence is a terrible thing.

 

 

 

 

Hmmm, how’d this get here? It’s from last year… a more traditional Halloween type mask.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Oh, and this is what happens if you don’t let go of the candy fast enough…ow!

 

 So that was my Halloween. I’d love to know what everyone else got up to!

 

 

 

Zombies and Vampires… I’m starting to think there’s a theme here

Posted on Oct 30, 2009 09:12:00 PM

I got to practice my new skills last week.  Larping again, of course.  Lots of fun.  I had to makeup a bunch of vampires and… well, we’ll call them zombies, they weren’t really, they were magical experiments gone wrong, but essentially they were people with ghastly wounds and really important pieces missing (like brains and hearts) who were still walking around. Sounds like a zombie to me.

There wasn’t a lot of time and I was singlehandedly responsible for making the game start late. Oops, but I went as fast as I could!  Don’t look if you’re squeamish, hehe, but I was particularly proud of this cut throat… 

and this gouged out face, and this other fellow who’s definitely got something wrong with him, though he doesn’t look overly unhappy about it.

 

Look, seriously, I promise I’ll do something pretty next time, ok. Something with butterflies and flowers. Promise.  Oh wait, it’s Halloween tomorrow….

 

LARP Article on 20/20

Posted on Oct 10, 2009 12:09:00 AM

Remember my article on facepainting for larpers? Face Painting and Zombies  was written about my most excellent weekend at Chimera.  I mentioned that the 20/20 documentary team were there filming an article on the hobby.  Well, here it is.

http://tvnz.co.nz/20-20-news/coming-up-20-having-larp-3047776/video

They did show me painting Hugh’s beard, disguising the elastics.  Well, my hands anyway.   I can live with that.

 

Evil Twins visit New Zealand for Face Painting Awesomeness

Posted on Oct 6, 2009 06:48:00 AM

Brian and Nick Wolfe of Evil Twin FX came to New Zealand as part of some sort of “almost world tour”.  They ran 2 day workshops in Wellington and Auckland. I went along to the Auckland one at the Lake House Art Center in Takapuna.  Here’s my class.  Might swap it out for a larger version tomorrow.  That’s a bit teeny (gets magnifying glass).

 

It was FANTASTIC!  I learned heaps and had a blast doing it.  I’ve bought books and watched videos and muddled along figuring out stuff myself, but there’s nothing like having someone lean over your shoulder and go “that’s good, but look what happens if you just move this line here.” and have the design just go pow!  If you ever get the opportunity to go to a workshop with these guys, take it!  Plus they have these awesome heads to practice on. I need one!  So, day one was skull and monster faces, plus some excellent line drawing and tribal techniques which I will be practicing lots.

The best part is that they focus on face painting designs for boys.  It’s a little harder to find cool boy designs, especially for older boys.  Now I can do bullet wounds, scars and monsters for all!  At the end of both days, we students volunteered to be painted by the brothers (or would begged be a better word? yeah, probably!).  As Saturday was the David Tua / Shane Cameron fight night, a bunch of folks were going off to watch the fight at various bars and parties.  They got all uglied up for the evening, black eyes, cuts, bruises, broken teeth.  Me, I hadda take it one step further and ask to have part of my face ripped off.

  

 Yah, LARPers, taking it too far, allll the time. Anyway, here’s me, all uglied up, with Nick Wolfe, who painted it. Thanks!  I went to a birthday party after.  Fortunately, not a kids one.

 

 

 

 

Day 2 was wounds, gore and prosthetics.  Awesome!  I really enjoyed learning how to paint stitches, cuts, bruises and bullet holes, by lunchtime the whole class looked like a war had broken out. These two “reluctant” volunteers (hah!) are our new resident Zombie and Moria Orc.  If you ever wondered what girl orcs look like, there you go!  Thanks Erin, Jules and Brian Wolfe for posing for the pictures.

 A bit more watching and less participation with the prosthetic section, but still, I got to paint some of the grey on the zombie, so he’s partly my creation!  Oh, and GM friends, I also took loads of notes, so recreation is a possibility.