Face Painting

Today it has rained all day! So our summer craft for this week is face-painting, which has occupied us perfectly. I bought a cheap pack of face-paints from Snazaroo and set about transforming my children into tigers and monsters…here is how.


Jessie was keen to kick us off with a tiger. I began by painting the middle of her face yellow using the free sponge that came with the pack.

It is important to get the sponge and paint a little wet, but if you over do the water then the paint is too thin and can drip down the face.




The pack didn't come with orange so using the sponge I mixed yellow and red to make an orange that I sponged onto the rest of her face.

Once the face is covered you are ready to begin adding the features. I used white paint, leaving it as thick as possible so it wasn't translucent over the orange and painted it on with the brush that was provided.

I used the tops of Jessie's eyebrows to mark the bottom of the tiger's eyebrows meaning that they were straight on her face.

I find it much easier to get things symmetrical if I paint the left side of the face first. I am right handed so it means I can see the side I have just painted and mirror it on the other side. You will need to reverse this if you are left handed.

Finally, add black lips, whiskers and other details. Don't try and be precise when you do this. It needs quick hand movements that create much more fluid lines than if you spent a long time trying to be exact.

The small dots above her mouth were done with the wrong end of the brush by dipping it into the paint and pressing it gently onto her face to get perfect little dots.

No surprise, Jack wanted to be a monster!!!

Here I have painted the whole of his face with the sponge in a green paint.

Now I add the details of his eyebrows and facial lines. I tried to make a brown using a small bit of black on the red. As it turned out the red was fine to use alone as it browned once applied to the green.

Finally I add the details of teeth, lips, hair and a nose with the black. I used the paint brush, which gave surprisingly thin lines.

Jack jumped out at the other three kids who screamed so loudly I wondered what had happened. He was delighted to get this reaction and the four of them fell about laughing!

Billy wasn't as impressed with having his face painted until I told him I could try and paint the Liverpool Football Club badge on him!

I think I aimed a little too high. I found a clear image on the internet and set about copying.

Firstly I drew the badge with a slightly dodgy liver bird. Then added the green ribbon.

The details on the badge suddenly seemed terribly complicated so I added some curly lines and a yellow flame.

At this stage Billy is loosing interest, so I quickly write the word Liverpool and a few more details before he dashes off. I have to say this was too hard for me, but I didn't just want to do an England flag.

He was happy with it though and left singing 'You'll never walk alone!"

And now for Molly. She really wanted a butterfly and rather than painting her face the normal way people paint butterflies, I thought I would try a pretty but simple alternative.

I have used three colours on her face to begin. With the sponge I dap a small area on her cheek bones with pink, then dark green to her eye lids and light green/yellow above the eyebrows. Blending colours like the yellow and green are much easier if you use the sponge because you can just overlay one colour over another in a dabbing motion.

Starting with the left side of her face I painted a white line from the bridge of her nose, over her eyebrow and curled up. Then continue the line down the side of her face to the corner of the eye. Add on some large petal shapes over the pink cheeks.

Now repeat these shapes on the right side of her face copying the lines you made on the left. If you are left handed do the right side first then the left.

Finally I add the remaining detail. You can be as creative as you like, but again keep these strokes light and fluid. If I had glitter it would have been nice to include this on Molly's face.



We had a smashing afternoon doing this, and then the children thought it would be even more fun to paint my face. I gave the four of them 10 minutes each to paint a section of my face, and before I knew it they had covered me with a beautiful selection of flowers, beards, words!

I have just tucked them into bed, very thankful to God for the gift of four amazing kids.