Painting Faces

My first face painting project.  Tweaked the eyes with  a photo editor.

Face painting is commonly described as a form of body painting in which cosmetics are applied on a model's face.  Since the time of ancient civilizations, face painting was used for a variety of reasons.  Nowadays, it is an art form where artists could express themselves using the faces of models as their canvas.

I did my first project on myself way back in January 2010, a day after I have watched Avatar on the big screen.  The image you see above is my Avatar-inspired look!  Ha ha ha!

Will post more of my past face painting adventures and new ones along the way!

Art Works For A Cause

Triumvirate
1ft x 1 ft
Acrylic on Canvas

Art Works For A Cause is a cause/group founded by my artist friends who want to help less-fortunate school children learn art.  The vision of the group is to raise funds by donating and putting artworks up for auction. Sales of the artworks will be used for buying art materials and also for production costs for holding art workshops for the recipients of the donations.  

The image above is of my painting.  Check out our facebook page for more artworks!  Don't forget to place your bid and buy our paintings! 

Egypt Revisited

I have always been a fan of Egypt and Ancient Egypt since I was a child.  I have always been enthralled by the architecture, artifacts, and amazing culture that seems to be surpassed by no other civilization.  Of course I am appreciative of other cultures and their contributions to the world of the arts but Egypt has an uncanny mystique that convinces me that I have been there before in a previous existence.

Anyway, I had been tasked to provide Egypt-inspired souvenirs for a convention and I did try my best to make reliefs inspired by Amarna art.  This is nothing fancy.  I made the prototypes and a team of hard-working souls helped me produce more or less 150 sets for the convention participants.


Materials:
Plaster of Paris
Modeling Clay
Cutter/Blade
Sandpaper (very fine)
Silicone
Acrylic Paint
Acrylic Emulsion

Process:
*With the help of modeling clay as mould, made plaster tablets with a 1:2 ration of water and plaster of Paris.
*Sketched designs on the tablets.  Etched out reliefs using cutter blades. Used very fine sandpaper to smoothen edges.
*Used silicone to cover the prototype tablets in order to create the moulds to be used for mass production.
*Mass produced plaster tablets.  Cleaned and smoothened finished ones in preparation for painting.
*Painted clean tablets.  Applied acrylic emulsion as sealant/gloss.

The entire process lasted for a little over a month (from March to April) yet the mass production part was done in less than three weeks!  It was quite hectic and we had so many sleepless nights but it was all worth it!

Prototypes and unfinished tablets of Akhenaten, Aten, and Nefertiti

These two, Akhenaten and Aten, made it to the goody bag.  Nefertiti was quite complicated we had to leave her out.

At Last!

For more than a year I have been away from the blogging world and I have thought of making a comeback... Well I'm back and I'm here with a new blog -- something that will be the venue for my magick brush's artsy encounters with the Unknown.  I will be posting stuff about art (my own and others' too!) and I hope to keep this blog going and going and going.....