Paintopia Face & Body Paint Festival
I had the chance to compete in my very first competition this month at the uber awesome Paintopia Face & Body Art Festival!
A fellow amazing artist, Pierangela Manzetti invited me along as her assistant to enter the "Body Painter of The Year with Assistant" category with the theme "The Art Of Music"
We met a few times before the event to go through Pier's idea's of what she wanted her design to look like and how I was to help etc. Pier had made this awesome headpiece to accompany the design and she had put her heart and soul into the body art that she wanted to recreate. She worked super hard in the months and weeks perfecting what she had in her head...to how it was going to look on the body.
There are many rules to follow especially when you have an assistant, there were things I could and couldn't do. Mainly I was to do bases, hold stencils and apply glitter & nails (and basically try and keep Pier calm) and of course, have fun!
The day started early at 8.30am, I met Pier and the beautiful model Evie Green in the hotel lobby and got going to the gorgeous venue of Spratstow Manor in Norwich, (unfortunately due to a rather loud nightclub next door to my hotel, I didn't get the sleep I intended and was super tired - not a good start)
Upon arrival, we registered and were given a goody bag with lots of cool stuff in it! (love a freebie). We located & set up at our table - number 44 and made sure we were ready to go by the starting time of 9.15am.
The room was filled with other artists (many I follow on Facebook, Youtube & Instagram) and their gorgeous models, some had already started painting as there were about four other categories painting at the same time, the atmosphere was inspiring!
The clackson sounded and off we went, it took us some time to get into it and I think our "plan" of what we were going to do, when, pretty much went out the window within the first couple of hours!!
By the time lunchtime had come around, we hadn't done as much as we had hoped but we were still optimitistic. Lunchtime gave us a chance to see everyone elses work so far and WOW.....they were amazing! We got to speak to a few of the other artists and models and it was fab to be able to listen to others who loved what they did as much as we do!
After lunch, we cracked on and tried to get as much done as possible, the time seemed to fly by and by the end of it we had pretty much completed what we wanted to do. There were a few bits that were unfinished and it was really hard for me as I couldn't help with line work so it was up to Pier to get the majority done, which I felt for her as we just ran out of time. However, we were pleased with the end result and thought Evie looked fantastic.
Judging was done a short time later and then professional pics were taken. The scoring was completed and we didn't place, but tbh we kinda expected that. We were happy to just take part and to get a vibe for how everything worked at a competition.
We learned soo much from it, the "do's and don'ts", the "what not to do's", the "what to focus on" and of course the "how to try and master the time better".
Next time, we will do better....I came away soo inspired from it and can't wait to create more body art.
I also now want to purchase an airbrush!! hahah!
I have to thank Pier for inviting me and thank Evie for being such a superstar for the whole day, this amazing model never complained throughout the whole day and she is a gorgeous soul inside and out!
Oh and one of the highlights for me.....I met Nick Wolfe!! Yep...THE Nick Wolfe and I was like a star struck 12 year old girl round him, I couldn't think of anything "intelligent or artistic" to say, I just had this huge smile, said something completely irrelevant and got a selfie with him!!! I must try harder to act "cool" next time!!!! PMSL!
