Cat Face Paint
Whether your child wants to dress up as a certain character for Halloween or wants a facial souvenir from the carnival, face painting has many applications. The best way to ensure a memorable face painting experience is to have a sense of what you want to accomplish before you begin the face painting. Even for simple cheek decorations at a carnival, talk to your child about what design she wants so the end result pleases child and parent alike.
Full Face Designs
If you have access to a talented face painter, consider a full face design for your child. This approach is especially effective if you want to create various characters or costumes. Full face designs sometimes replicate an animal's face. For instance, to transform your child into a tiger, paint white, black and orange stripes all over the face. Then use black face paint to make the tiger's nose and white paint for the tiger's mouth. Other animal designs that work especially well with full face paint include peacocks, mandrills or clown fish. In general, any animal that has a brightly colored face with recognizable patterns will work well on your child's face.
During Halloween time, use full face designs for witches, ghosts, monsters, superheroes and more. For common monsters, purchase a simple face painting kit specific to the monster. Sold in most drug stores, these face painting kits include application instructions.
Some children may not want their faces to look like any specific character or animal. Full face patterns are popular alternatives to identifiable character-based designs. Geometric shapes, multi-colored lines and even replicas of nature scenes all work well as face painting designs.
Decorative Face Painting
Since full face designs require kids to sit still for long periods of time, many children prefer simple cheek flourishes. A butterfly or heart on the cheek provides the face with a basic decorative lift. Other good cheek decorations include sports team logos, superhero symbols or small items like balloons. Cheek designs are popular at fairs, carnivals and other locations where professional face painters offer their services.
Characters Achieved with Partial Face Painting
If your child wants to have his face painted like an animal or character but does not want to sit through a lengthy face painting session, focus on a given animal or character's most basic traits. To create a dog, paint your child's nose and mouth only. Or use a dog nose mask and only paint around your child's eyes. For princess face paint, focus on dramatic eye designs and add some rosy cheeks. While a full face design may look great, the basic facial features of various characters and animals are often sufficient when used creatively.
Make sure to take proper precautions if you apply make-up near the eyes or mouth. If your child is antsy and doesn't want to close his eyes, use an eye mask instead of face paint and focus the paint on the nose and/or mouth.
