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