Coming soon!
"Adventures In Body Painting"
Did you ever wonder how body art evolved? This article gives some background and insight to the evolution of body art
A Canvas to Consider
By Colleen May
& The Whole Airbrush Shoppe Crew
Artists have always viewed the human body as an art in its own right, inspiring creative expressions of emotion, form, beauty and culture- not to mention good, old-fashioned sex. With that in mind, it's easy to see why the newest artistic craze of the millenium is body art. We're not referring to the replication of body on canvas. We're referring to art applied on human skin.
Throughout the history of mankind, body art has been an integral part of social acceptance and tribal beauty. It has also been very spiritual in its interpretations and applications, many times being painful-even fatal- to the recipient. Tattoos, piercing and body painting were traditionally rites of passage, linked to bravery and adulthood. These arts have since evolved into joyous expressions of one's originality... and everything in between!
Bindi, mehndi, tattoos, body piercing, temporary tattoos, body painting: Our society has taken on a renewed fascination with adorning ourselves in art. Perhaps the sexual revolution is to thank for the re-interest in the human body being an object of lovely significance, instead of a vessel to hide and be ashamed of. Who knows? Whatever the reason, it is refreshing to see a renaissance of the human body and our attitudes concerning its perfection.
In their day, legendary masters of art such as Michaelangelo, Donatello, and Monet found great satisfaction in creating images of people. Today, an innovative hand-full of modern artists have chosen to take the study of human form a step further than that of our honored predecessors. Combining ancient body art with modern inspiration and technology, we are using the living body as our canvas. Henceforth, modern body painting has been born.
Recently, body painting has gained international attention for its unique contribution to the modern world of art. Breathtaking examples of art, displayed on living canvas, have adorned magazines, films and television. World-renowned models, film stars and jet setters have adopted body painting as a new type of entertainment for parties and social events. The general public seems to adore the concept. It is fast becoming one of the hottest art crazes of our time.
From the artist's perspective, the possibilities are endless. If you can dream it up, you can also paint it on skin. Clothing can be painted on; often appearing so real that many people wouldn't notice there was something "amiss". Almost any attire can be painted to look real and authentic, right down to the buttons, broaches and accessories. An example growing quickly in popularity is the painting of bikinis and bathing suits on beach bunnies all over the globe.
Great masterpieces of portraiture and impressionism can also be applied directly to the living canvas, making it look like the body belongs behind a glass display case in a museum. This type of body painting usually involves fine art being painted directly onto the model, producing a truly tasty blend of beauty and intrigue.
Another popular body painting technique is to blend the model into his/her surroundings, camouflaged only until they open their eyes. This method of illusion is entrancing and almost startling, drawing the observer into the world of the artist and leaving them to ponder where the model begins... and where the art ends.
Body painting applications vary from artist to artist. There are artists who throw it on, splash it on, roll it on, sponge it on, and brush it on. No doubt, these methods are very tedious and time-consuming, many times taking several hours to complete. The end results are usually worth the wait, however.
I was introduced to body painting several years ago. The concept impressed me as completely alluring and infinite in its possibilities. Somehow, it appealed to my primal roots combined with my deep sense of creative splendor. Being an airbrush artist by trade, the exposure to body painting gave me a wild notion: airbrush could be used to create striking body paintings. After much research and experimentation, I found my wild notion to be correct. Airbrush indeed produces some of the finest body paintings in the World.
In 1998, my sister and I opened The Airbrush Shoppe, Etc., an airbrush art studio specializing in airbrushed face and body painting. We spent a substantial amount of time trying to research some of the tools of our new trade, but we found very little in the way of quality supplies and equipment on the market. Our two biggest problems were finding the right makeup and the right stencil templates. It seemed that all of the body makeup we found was not airbrush formulated or it was oil-based and all of the stencils were either lame designs or made of poor-quality material. Being tenacious women, we set out to formulate and invent our own airbrush makeup and stencils. Our standards were high, taking us a lot of time, research, blood, sweat and tears but we finally came up with our own airbrush makeup formula and our own line of airbrush stencils. We now use our own products exclusively on all of our projects.
At the Airbrush Shoppe, our motto is "If it will stand still long enough, we'll airbrush it!" and we're not saying that lightly! We enjoy working regularly with local sports fans (Go Chiefs!), airbrushing team logos on a cheek or painting a whole face to resemble a team flag. We airbrush temporary tattoos for parties, events and carnivals. Halloween is a fun season, providing us with the opportunity to paint faces, costumes and special effects makeup for parties and haunted houses. While we truly enjoy working with all of these techniques, we find that body painting is by far the most artistically gratifying.
We began our body painting adventure with the Kansas City Zoo's Imax Theatre. They were in need of some good entertainment at the openings of their films, and we were in need of a good place to shoot photos of our body painted creations. We obviously had to gear these shows for general audiences, so our models wore body suits. We incorporated the body suit into the design and painted the models in demonstration-style entertainment. The crowds were infatuated, standing for hours to watch our creations emerge. The whole idea was an instant success for us and for the Imax Theatre. Our photos turned out brilliantly and their crowds were more than entertained.
From the days of the Kansas City Zoo, we have come a long way and we've started to travel with our art. We've painted faces and bodies from all over the World, much to our delight, and from all different walks of life. We've painted nurses, doctors, lawyers, teachers, students, police officers, pharmacists, models and even a Playboy bunny, just to name a few. Our most amazing (and interesting!) trip to date would have to be our first Mardi Gras Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana. Mardi Gras, my friends, is not a "general audience"! The good people at Esoterica Occult Goods Shop hosted us this year in the French Quarter for two of the craziest weeks we've spent anywhere! We airbrushed everything from temporary tattoos and Mardi Gras masks to breasts, chests and an alien face on a man's bum. We did a lot of airbrush makeup application for the Drag Queens of the French Quarter and we were fortunate to do a photo shoot with Playboy.com while we were there, airbrushing their bunny to be a full-bodied leopard. We also had the honor of painting masks and full faces for some of the British Royal Navy while they were docked in New Orleans during Carnival, all of whom were courteous and a fun lot of fellows to work with!
As it is obvious, we truly enjoy what we do, but there is a downfall. Undeniably, the worst part of body painting is that the art only lasts for a few hours. No matter how beautiful or perfect the masterpiece, it washes off and wears away. Photographs of the body paintings help to preserve the artwork, but nothing can retain the spellbinding essence which is lost once the paint is washed away.
The World is entranced by the beauty and illusion created with body painting. That is quite probably due to our fascination with the human body and our undying love for art. Body painting induces thought, inspires imagination, and invokes emotion in everyone who is exposed to it. I find it magical to be a part of a common ground where people of all races, ages, sex, creeds and backgrounds join together in cheerful awe of something so beautiful. My personal hope is that this unique art form will continue to mature for generations to come, teaching us all more about ourselves, our bodies, our sensuality and the infinite universe of artistic expression.
This website and all of it's contents, including the artwork represented, are ©copyrighted by Colleen May and The Airbrush Shoppe, Etc., 2005-2007. Any unauthorized use or reproduction of the photos, text, artwork or any other artistic objects contained herein is expressly forbidden, without the aurthor's written permission.