Welcome to Painting

Body Painting Techniques and Ideas

Body adorning has been around for centuries. There have been tattoos, body piercings, and body painting. These have had different meanings throughout the ages. Some body painting was to prepare for battle, some for ceremonies, and some for pure decoration. When a person wishes to have his or her body painted it is known as body painting and is unlike tattooing since it is a temporary phenomenon and is painted on the human skin. It is designed to last for several hours or in some cases, for a couple of weeks. Traditional body painting began with clay and natural pigments and were commonly found in most tribal cultures and used for ceremonies and still survives among the aborigines of Australia and in the Pacific Islands as well as in tribes of Africa.

In India, there is a semi-permanent form of body painting known as Mehndi that makes use of dyes made of henna and is practiced for painting brides in India as well as in the Middle East. The popularity of Mehndi has grown since the late 1990s and is now much sought after by young women in the Western world. Also, body painting is widely used in dramatics with actors and also, clowns having their faces as also their bodies painted.

Body painting has seen a revival ever since the 1960s and this may be attributed to the more permissiveness of social mores with regard to nudity and debates rage hotly about whether body painting is legitimate art form or not. It may be seen to have been revived around 1933 when Max Factor body-painted a model with their new make-up formula that targeted Hollywood films, primarily. There is nothing however to insist on that body painting need be only performed on nude bodies as it may also be localized to small designs on a certain area of the body.

Body Painting Festivals

At present, this way of painting bodies is becoming very popular amongst both professionals as well as amateurs and there are body painting festivals held annually across the world that brings together body painters, both professional as well as amateurs. Football matches, rave parties and certain festivals are also occasions for a person or fan to get body painting done on them. The World BodyPainting Festival is held at Seeboden in Austria and is the biggest art event that attracts thousands of visitors.

Also, the famous 1960s supermodel, Veruschka has been called a favorite of body painters and her images in the book Transfigurations that has her photographed by photographer Holger Trulzsch have been widely copied. And, ever since the 1990s, body painting is become more acceptable to Americans and famous body painters include Playboy's Mark Frazier, Robert Johnson from dvnc-arts and Leroy Roper of Leroytoper.com.

Body painting and face painting can have different forms and can be permanent or temporary. Unlike auto painting and house painting (which is meant to be permanent), body painting can be washed off or will fade with time. This allows for you to change your body paint depending upon your mood.

Devotional Objects: 'Retablos' at Paul Thiebaud (The New York Sun)

One of the most reliable rewards of folk art is its honesty: the straightforward methods and materials of its making, and the directness of its purpose. The small devotional paintings known as retablos are especially poignant for their frank demonstrations of faith. Produced by the thousands by anonymous 19th-century Mexican artists, these images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and countless saints ...

Sotheby's Amsterdam to Sell Works From European Private Collections (Art Daily)

Jan Frans van Bloemen, called l'Orizzonte (Antwerp 1662 - 1749 Rome) One of A pair of wooded Italianate landscapes. Each: approx. 49.7 by 66.5 cm. Est. €50.000-70.000. Photo: courtesy of Sotheby's.

Baroque choir restored to its original splendour (Times of Malta)

Detail of Pietro Paolo Troisi's reredos angel before restoration. The Baroque choir of the Carmelite church in Mdina is back to its original splendour following a two-year conservation programme that included the restoration of an impressive altar painting by Maltese painter Stefano Erardi.

Spread of graffiti reported after shop allowed mural (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

A mural on a commercial building in Walker’s Point has reignited the perpetual debate over what is art, what is an illegal sign or graffiti and what impact such murals have on a neighborhood.

Art exhibition opens for 25th anniversary of Africville relocation (Metro Halifax)

To move forward from Africville, it’s necessary to understand Africville.   The curator of Africville House, an exhibition of art inspired by the Africville experience, said yesterday at the opening of the exhibit, the memories can’t be erased like the name and location of the community once were. “Africville’s name was deliberately erased from our records,” David Woods told a small crowd ...