Norkina Commission

So one of those lovely festival ragdolls hired me for a new project on Friday night: to turn the lovely Jennie into the fairy lantern Norkina! 

So Norkina usually looks like this:

So you can see I had my work cut out for me!

Incidentally that's Jennie holding her up on the left!

Unfortunately as we were rather strapped for time it was somewhat difficult to take step by step pics as I went along so here's just a verbal breakdown of what happened:

1. Paint face, neck and ears white, ensuring it had a good solid base and was worked into the hairline a little. 

2. Loading yellow onto the same sponge I went over Jennie's nose and a little across her cheeks and upper lip to create a "central glow" effect that had a large ambient blur into the White, turning it a little creamier and warmer.

3. Mixing green and red on the back of my hand to a warm, dark tan/mid brown colour to match the willow being used in the costume, I painted circles n a goggle fashion around the eyes and 'spiked' petals out equally and outlined a huge spiky set of lips going from ear to ear. I also framed her face outline and painted a divided isosceles triangle over the top of her nose in the same patterns as Norkina's.

4. Really disliked the eyes/lips line work, and after further criticism from Jennie's daughter I agreed and wiped the lines away.

5. Repaired the White/yellow inner and went back to make smaller but similar markings to the eyes and lips, but this time I gradually made the eye "petals" get smaller as they came under the eye and whilst the mouth was still outsized, the lines were much smaller than before.

6. Added highlights and shadow lines in black on the edges of some of the brown to give more depth to the "willow". A few touches of gold glitter gel on the brows, head, cheeks and chin to catch in the light finished the face off.

7. Finished painting the remaining skin visible on chest, neck and shoulders adding it thicker over the collar bone, bust and shoulder blades for a little more depth and worked a little into the hair around the face and voila, it's time for the fairy to go to the party!

This paint only really worked due to the nature of the costume but I think we were both pleased with the overall effect!

On retrospect I think I shouldn't have joined the nose triangle lines to the top of the 'mask' but that's how lanterns are constructed. It would have made for a prettier but less acurate look overall. I would also have spent the time fixing the lines on adding more to Jennie's chest and neck and. Added a little more yellow there too, to blur the difference between costume and paint ideally, but it was an excellent learning curve for me and I think it all works. 

Such a fantastic and unique concept for the costume too!

Lantern Festival Tutorials

So I was thrilled to be asked to run a couple of workshops/tutorials for the finale performers of this years' Ulverston Lantern Festival by my hoop teacher - the spectacular performer Miss Jennifer (Street) of Matrix Circus, who was putting together an Arts Council UK funded piece. 

My job was to help the community folks involved really get into their characters for this years theme: Out of the Toy Box through face painting. Whilst I was there to suggest tweaks and alternatives, my role mostly involved teaching the skills I have and inspiring the performers to adapt and create their own individual personas. This collective was known as The Community Spark Project.

My workshops involved helping each of the core groups; the rag dolls, clowns and China dolls with some ideas on how they want themselves to look and feel, how that might be expressed to an audience at a distance, whilst being lit ambiently by fire and LEDs. 

Here is an example of the small packs I put together to suggest ideas and alternatives for the clowns:

It was important not to be too prescriptive but also to have a cohesion overall to how the makeup will look for each person. My style sheets were examples of variety only so that everybody could ideally take their ideas in the direction they felt comfortable with, so that I wasn't telling them which was right or wrong.

Hopefully everybody felt happy with the ideas they came up with and I taught a few helpful tricks to ensure a bold look with a solid finish could be reached. I was really proud of what everyone created and judging by the photos - it really brought all the costuming and performance together for a polished finish the entire town turned out to witness.

Whilst I may have assisted in a few faces, the vast majority shown here did all or most of it themselves. 

The clowns:

The Rag Dolls:

The China Dolls:

I don't claim any credits for taking these pictures but as you can see the makeup turned out a treat in the darkness:

(Incidentally that's also me second from the right at the front with the red drum light)

All in all I had a wonderful time, it all went pretty smoothly and everyone seemed happy at what they had created and the performance was excellent. Things to learn for next time: find a better supply of sponges and don't forget to cover any makeup tables as despite using the oh so soluable snazaroo, there was some scrubbing involved...