Facepaint UK Blog

It looks so easy... but the simplest faces can be the most tricky.

The easiest way is to use Grimas Cake White if you have it. You don’t need to be so careful as you can paint another colour over it. If you don’t have Cake White (and at Wembley you won’t) you need to be careful not to cross over the red and the white. Make bold strokes and you will get a straighter line. Look ahead at where you are going, not where the brush or sponge is, a bit like driving a car.

The most important thing is where the red cross is placed on the face. Don’t be tempted to go over the eyes, the top of the horizontal red stripe should be just under the eyes otherwise you will be messing about trying to get a decent stripe over bumpy ground. Halfway on the face isn’t the eyes.

The whole of the nose should be covered with red, this might seem odd, but looking at it face on, it will be right.

Malcolm (The London School of Facepainting model) had agreed to be an England supporter for now. Later on he will support USA! Check back in a couple of days.

Paint the white quarters first, (the square sponge will make this easy) and blend them out with the same sponge to the edges.

Fill in the red stripe, and gently sponge over it to make it even if necessary. The stripe can be done with a flat brush or the ½ round sponge. If you have time you might like to get creative!

I am busy cutting stencils to try and make life quick and easy. This is how to use them:

Spray the sponge lightly from about 6" away and swipe firmly across the paint. If it is too wet it will bleed and run under the stencil. Hold the plastic stencil on the face with thumb and finger of your free hand, it's not sticky. Apply paint through stencil.

Load with the next colour and place second stencil in the right place and sponge through. This was done in about 30 seconds as Daniel wanted to go out URGENTLY.

NEXT Malcolm switches allegiance.........

He got a funny accent and went all weird on me.

So this is how to use the USA stencils, not everyone will have to do this, and they are a bit tricky.

Start with the 1st colour, I did red.

Then the blue, then the white. I added just dots for the stars - it's far too small to paint stars in.

This was all very complicated, so we have a flat flag stencil too:

The stars are 6 across and 5 down filled in with one in the middle like 5 spots on a dice if that makes any sense. I found that the easiest way to do it. Again, I just added the stars as dots. The blue paint is a bit darker than it looks in the photo.

Malcolm then told me he was just kidding, so he got an England Flag on his forehead to remind him whose side he is on.

He must be a Brit because he has a very stiff upper lip, and needs to lighten up a little.