Pretty On The Outside

Body paint fun with model Marcelino Rosas and photograper Kurt R Brown.

How did you spend your sunday?  At church?  Did you go on a family picnic?  Maybe you took in a movie after stopping by a farmer's market where you purchased heirloom tomatoes and local honey?  Or perhaps you spent the entire day lounging in your new tempurpedic bed resting up before a busy work week?  Well, I spent the majority of my sunday body painting my friend Marcelino.  He and photographer Kurt R Brown came up with the concept of turning him into a futuristic robot.  A boybot.  And if I may ask, I'm wondering what would you do with this boybot?  Take him to church?  Go on a family picnic with him?  Take him to a movie and then a farmer's market?  Or would you have a little "private alone time" with the boybot?  No judgement from me. You could perhaps sit him next to you on the couch and take in an episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills while telling him that you think Taylor looks too thin and that the new girl has bad taste.  But I digress....... 

Here's a cropped version of the finished image and the whole photo is in the second half of the posting.  The final image may be a little not safe for work...... just a warning.

Body painting. Graffiti'd guys.

Here's a little show and tell of some of my work.  I have in two distinct styles that I'm exploring.  One way is to create an optical trick that a body painted model photographed standing in front of a painted canvas appears as though they're a flat image.  Like this and this. The other style also involves painting a backdrop which corresponds to the artwork on the model but this style which is featured above is more in the graffiti direction. I create a free-form scrolling mass of details which travels up, over and around the body.  If some of the painting on the body blurs and becomes one with the art on the backdrop--- then all the better.  More in the second half on the posting.

Body painting. A couple very lovely ladies.

Here's some more body painting show and tell with two great gals.  Both wonderful, charming, and warm and it was my treat to work with and paint on them.  The first is a friend and as she has a serious corporate job I'll skip mentioning her name and unfortunately I can't show her beautiful face either.  Oh well.  I painted a large face on her back and covered her arms, lower back and hips with some a vividly colored brush strokes.  I wasn't trying to make her necessary look like a flat painting--- just wanted to make some pretty photos.  Here she goes....

And another.

Body painting. Marcelino.

I am on a body painting spree of late so get used to seeing lots more of that work here.  Lots more.  Sure I have fun drawing and recapping the attention-starved antics of those Real Housewives but this body painting work is the yin to that crazy yang.  That dang yang which I love too.  Anyway, I painted on my friend Marcelino for the second time this past Thursday.  That previous session I did the body painted portrait look on him which you can see more examples of here.  The following is my favorite from that shoot.

 

For this go-round I did the other look which is a graphic-illustrational-carnivale vibe.  Woo woo!!

I painted a 40" x 60" canvas which I used as a backdrop.  I'm a huge fan of well done graffiti and have seen some stunning work in New Orleans, Mexico City, and NYC.  I hopefully channeled that feel in this scrolling, dripping, doodle-y, colorful painting.

Here are some photos of me painting Marcelino.  I used mostly MAC Chromacake along with Wolfe, Kryolan, and Mehron body paints.

Body Painting.

Hello again. Wanted to share with you all some of what I've been up to lately.  I'm definitely in a body painting zone and there are two directions I'm moving forward with.

1.  Body Painted Portraits.  I first paint a large canvas with acrylic paint using aggressive brush strokes and next paint on a model with body paint makeup (MAC Chromacake, Mehron, Kryolan, Wolfe).  I then photograph them standing in front of that canvas.  The goal is to alter/ skew the perception of what you're looking at.  Hopefully you'll think it's a flat canvas.  Here are two recent examples:

Please click on these to enlarge.

That's Khalif and he's one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting.  To take the concept even one step further, I painted a portrait of him on him.  More in the second half of this posting.

That's Dawn and she's 100% sunshine.  I fashioned a top out of paper and used three separate hair pieces to mold that updo which is covered paint and some other secret ingredients. 

2.  The other direction of body painting is an illustration-graphic look.

That's Manuel and he's also a sweet heart.  For the background of his shoot, I used a roll of white seamless paper and painted a scrolling floral line detail using black acrylic paint.  On him I painted the same floral line detail and added an electric blue by MAC Chromacake.  That color is extremely vibrant in person.  More of Manuel, Khalif, and Dawn in the second half of the posting.

Body Painted portrait: Keith

This is the third posting in my series of body painted portraits.  (I have three others completed which I'll be posting soon.)  About a month ago, I had stumbled across the following photo.....

.... and absolutely fell in love.  It's a sculpture by Russian artist Naum Gabo titled Head No. 2 created in 1916.  Oh my God--- the lines, the shapes...... it all speaks to me.  Is it speaking to you?  Being unfamiliar with that artist I did a bit of research and found he was associated with the Constructivist movement in which sculptures were created by using flat planes of metal or wood to define a space rather than using mass.  I knew I wanted to attempt painting the look of that sculpture on someone.  Why not? 

My friend Keith was my willing model.  Trying to replicate sharp-flat angles on someone's head and body proved to be a challenge but I was up for it.  At a certain point I abandoned that photo and just went with my instincts.  First I painted a 40" x 60" canvas which I used as a backdrop with crisscross brush strokes of tan, gray, cream, and dark brown.  Next I used MAC Chromacake body paint on Keith and here are the results.

 

Not exactly the same obviously, but hopefully you can see the intent.

Body painting

In an attempt to keep my blog from being just about The Real Housewives of wherever, I'm going to share some photos of something I absolutely love doing-  body painting.  I was a huge fan of Keith Haring's work growing up and admired his paint on everything approach.  I had an- Oh my God, I want to do that one day- moment when I saw that he'd body painted choreographer Bill T. Jones back in 1983.  Still find those images remarkable.  As someone who has painted on all kinds of surfaces: paper, canvas, panels, walls, furniture, fabric, and beyond, I think a body as canvas offers such promise. 

It was about a month ago that I painted on my friend Henry.  I quickly generated a bunch of loose drawings and paintings of him and used those as a backdrop.  All photos are taken by me. 

Click on any of these to see a larger version.

 

That's Henry in front of the collage of quick portraits.  

Using MAC Chromacake body makeup, I started with his face and neck.

I painted his entire body white and set it with some magical MAC powder.

 

Next, I drew caricatures of him on him using a black calligraphy-ish makeup pencil.  I forget who makes that but wow was it quick and easy to work with.  All those faces took only about 90 minutes to draw.  Again set with the magical finishing powder.

I had some photoshop fun with a couple of the crouching poses above.

I'm a fan of a triptych, so above is Henry unpainted, fully painted, and then an oil stick portrait I did after the project.

Body Painting

I've painted on all kinds of surfaces over the years from paper to canvas, walls to furniture, fabric to you name it.  Last Friday I revisited something I hadn't done in a while--- body painting.  Using black, white, and pink M*A*C chromacake makeup I painted a bonsai tree silhouette on my friend Mike. The above image is a collage of two photos from that shoot with some additional digital color enhancing.  Prints of that image are available on my Imagekind shop.

My friend Mike is what I'd refer to as the perfect canvas.  I digitally added the bonsai tree as a shadow.  Prints of that image are also available here on Imagekind.

There are more images which may be very slightly NSFW.