We had cats on our farm (although most of ours were either white, grey, or black and we were always hoping for an orange one), so this orange kitty will fit in perfectly for this month's farm series animals. The brands I used are in parenthesis below, but most brands will produce the similar results.
Materials
• Orange face paint (TAG)
• Red face paint (TAG)
• White face paint (Wolfe)
• Black face paint (Diamond FX)
• Lime green face paint (TAG)
• Purple face paint (Global)
• Red, orange, and yellow small split cake (TAG)
• 1/2-inch flat or filbert brush
• Small filbert brush
• #5 round brush
• #2 round brush
Tutorial
Begin by drawing the nose triangle in the center of the forehead with white. This is your guiding shape, and you're going to build the rest of the image from it.
Load a 1/2-inch flat or filbert brush from the red, orange, and yellow split cake. Create the curved top of the cat's head above the nose.
Add the can't side whiskers with the same brush and fill in all the space between the outer edge of the cat and his nose.
Use the #5 round to add white inside the ears and the filbert/flat brush turned on its side to make the top of the ears. Use a round brush to wiggle/pull narrow wedges from the outside toward the nose of the cat as shown in red.
Use your small round brush to add outlines and details with black as shown in the photo below.
Using a small round brush, add white highlights, staying up on the tip of the brush and keeping it as perpendicular as possible to your work surface. (Which is kind of hard when you consider the face is not flat.) Don't forget highlights in the eyes, claws, and teeth.
With one of your smaller round brushes, add dots and starbursts in lime green or bright green and purple around the outside of the cat.
Using a triad of colors on this design (orange, green, and purple) makes it especially appealing to the eye. Always think about your color choices in advance as you face paint to make use of their visual impact.
An added tip: You may want to place the cat a little higher on the forehead, especially if you're dealing with a young child who does not want paint near the eyes. Another option would be to sponge yellow or light green below the cat over the eyelids to make the design more mask-like.
Beth MacKinney is the owner of and primary face painter for Face Paint Pizzazz in Elgin, Illinois, and her artwork has appeared in The Colored Palette and SkinMarkz magazines. She services Elgin, Illinois, the NW Chicago suburbs, and northern Chicago, as well as the eastern suburbs of Rockford. Stop by Facepaint.com to check out her other face painting blog posts and tutorials.