NUDIST RESORT WIN!

During the Summer, I called up Cypress Cove Nudist Resort, in Florida to offer a promotional package to advertise up coming events for their guests. I traveled out to the Resort with photographer, Ryder Gledhill, and my tried and true model Katie O'Neil. It turned out, what they wanted to promote... was a body art competition!

THEN, because they booked my TIME, Cypress Cove also had me do a promotion for a Pirate 5K nude run, their Parrot Head Festival, and a breast cancer awareness event, all on the same model! She was covered with paint at the days end, both arms, torso, back and legs. Here's a shot that wasn't used by the resort, but shows Katie's awesome modeling skills.

A whole year later... I came to the competition, and competed with some of the best body painters in Central Florida. It was a great day of comradery among industry friends. The BONUS, was that I asked Lyn Sky to be my model, and she agreed, telling me she always wanted to work together. WOW! What a dream come true. Lyn is a professional model at the top of her game as a stilt walker and entertainer, and costume designer. Just knowing her is pretty amazing. Here is one shot in progress.

As the competition went on, and everyone got more comfortable with the nudity all around us at the resort, even the clothes on some of the artists on either side of me soon started to dwindle away to bare skin. "It's so hot in here!" They said. I opted to stay in the clothes in which I came. Finally, the artists and judges walked to the pool deck to be judged by the crowd. Lyn and I took second place.

THEN, we were automatically entered into the AANR National competition, and took FIRST PLACE!

The win gave us such a rush, and overjoyed, Lyn and I ran right over to the tiki bar called "CHEEKS" and had some rum runners with new friends. So grateful to have been a part of this event since the beginning. Cypress Cove is a beautiful and welcoming resort, for those in the mood to strip down! This was one of those moments, where you just know you've had a fine, fine, day at work.

INDUSTRY FRIENDS

Last year at convention was a dream come true. I met some painters who's work I idolized, placed 3rd in international body painting, and got to hang out with my paint idols at the after party! This year, I lost my title to World Class Body Painter and Instructor, Mark Reid... and made all new friends. Above the fabulous classes, better than the pool bar and room service, are the true friends that we make in the industry. This year, I met my new friend (and rockin' model) Suzy. We made instant friends as we loitered on the porch of the conference center at the hotel. I got the opportunity to paint her twice, and laughed through tears and beers together. This was my competition piece for Illusions, the top magazine for face and body painters to showcase their work. I went with the classic art history theme of the Greek myth, Leda and the Swan.

My girl totally had my back, when I changed theme suddenly, and dressed up my artwork with this awesome gold lame disco top, dark denim, and tall tail kicking pointy heels. When you get an ornate paint job, it adds so much to the over all look to dress it up like this.

This second paint job, took place in a jam room, with a couple hundred other body painters! Can you imagine the energy in a space where there are so many other artists being creative? It is very emotional.

Suzy was dressed as this fabulous belly dancer, (which she does in real life) so I painted a Ganesha and a Krishna and sacred cow on her, to go with the "Bollywood" theme at FABAIC. Suzy had painted her own mask.

This paint job was a suprise. After I finished painting Suzy and sent her off to have her photo taken by the fabulous Thomas Ledford, I was approached by this handsome painter, next to me. He said he needed some help finishing up his Ferrari piece, and needed me to paint the little logo horse on the model. He said he was watching me work on Suzy, and that he bet I would be good at it. "Sure!" I said. I looked up the logo on my phone, and tried to paint it with precision for him. "Good," he said. Next, he wanted me to ALSO letter the chest in the Ferrari font! I was surprised that this artist wanted me to tackle the focal point of his artwork, and I told him I wasn't sure 20 minutes was enough time to freehand this lettering before they closed the jam room. He told me to take a stab at it. He said, "imagine you have a client, and you HAVE to get the model out on the floor NOW!!!" So, I jumped right in at the challenge. I was hurrying, and then he revealed, that he was the famous Rodrigo Piedra, of Costa Rica body paint, and he is the contracted body painter for Ferrari! http://www.rodrigopiedra.com

Rodrigo used his model as a teaching platform, just for me. As I was packing up my paint, happy that I had painted with this cool and talented body painter and architect, he whistled to Jinny Houle. Jinny is from Canada, and is a top makeup artist for Cirque acrobatic performers, and revered teacher to the entire face painting industry. Rodrigo asked Jinny to do the eye makeup! http://www.jinnymakeup.com/ I am so honored to help create this special piece with two of the top painters in the industry. It may have just been a fun piece to paint for each of them, but painting with them helped give more clarity to my future as a body painter.

All photos in this posting, by Thomas Ledford at FABAIC

BODY PAINT WITH HEART: FLYING MONKEYS

I just got back from Face and Body Art International Convention, (FABAIC.com) in Ft. Lauderdale where I painted my heart out for three competitions, hung out with some of the top talent in the industry and passed out each night, in a wet bathing suit. Here is the piece I did for the last body art competition. The theme was "Fantasy of Flight" and I chose to do Flying Monkeys. Not the kind of monkeys that you think of, the evil minions of the Wicked Witch of the West, but the kind of monkeys that NASA shot into space to test the safety for humans.

photo by Chuck Smith 

photo by Chuck Maentz 

photo by Andrea Friedman 

Soap box side note: Monkeys, mice, cats and dogs have been launched into space for more than 60 years to "further science." These sentient beings were radiated, starved and thirsted to death in outer space, burnt up on re-entry, exploded at launch, or died upon impact, at the choice of their human captors. here is one NASA account of these animals in space: http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/animals.html and one more: http://www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/Animals/Dogs.html

I believe animals are a gift, and not ours to exploit for torture testing or entertainment. We need to respect the Earth. Let's make sure that we buy responsibly, to ensure we don't participate in the endangerment of animals and that we do "rage against the machine."

photo by Ricardo Reyes 

photo by Thomas Ledford

photo by Thomas Ledford