September Belly Painting Jam!

This week I hosted my first ever belly painting jam and it was a blast!!  In the end, 6 bellies were painted by 5 artists. One of the artists is also pregnant so she got to be a model, and then we had a couple more artists who just came to hang out, visit and watch!

Photos of the jam in action!

Artists came prepared with pot luck contributions and a design to paint! I also had an assortment of body painting magazines out for inspiration, with belly painting sections marked of course. Here are a few mini paintings that I did on the backs of my practice heads before the jam:

The back of your practice head is perfect for practicing bellies!

I wasn't sure if we'd be able to find enough moms interested, but the numbers worked out just right.  The only catch for the moms to get a free belly painting was that they had to allow the artists to choose the design they want to paint (unless the artist lets them help pick), and then they signed model release forms allowing the artists to use photos of their work for promotional purposes.

The first painting I did was on my beautiful friend Andrea! She has 3 boys and is expecting a GIRL!

 The fox design was inspired by an illustration I found online.  For the background I laid down a base of pearl blue paint. I then brushed on a layer of the new Pixie Paints ("Blue Monday") with a rake brush to give it a cool, chunky shimmer!  This is the first time I've used the pixie paints but they really worked great.  I then used a lollipop blender loaded with a white Mehron INtense Pro powder (lightening) and my BAM 1035 stencil to give the background some soft texture...

It was SO much fun to watch all the artists at work in my house!!  We had artists who have never painted bellies and those who have, but the beauty was that they all got to paint what they wanted, without the pressure of it being a paying client.  Belly paintings are expensive, they take a lot of time to create, and time to design beforehand.  They commemorate an unforgettable and life changing time in a woman's life, and photos go into baby books forever, so there is always pressure to make them amazing! 

All the bellies painted at the jam!

Of course we had amazing artists already, but some pretty amazing things happen when you remove all the stress factors! :-)

I was so super lucky to be able to paint two bellies!!  This one was on my beautiful balloon twisting and face painting friend, Jelly! This design was inspired by some Google image searches of moms and babies.

Here is a great example to illustrate why I always start by having the model stand up while I sketch the design outlines, THEN I have her sit down...

...If you start painting while mom is sitting down, your design will turn into an egg shape when she stands up. As you can see above, the design looks squished while I'm starting it in the top photo, but then rounds back out when she stands up. 

Babies' arms are chubby, so while I was painting I thought, "I need to add some more to that little arm!" Of course that was one moment I forgot about the squish factor...and when she stood up baby grew biceps! Oops! ;-) Sometimes the hard part is trusting your squished looking outlines while painting, and sticking to them! ;-)

We were even fortunate enough to have a REAL photographer attend as well!! So, I may just be updating this post in the near future with some way better photos, ha!

If you're interested in having YOUR belly painted, check out my belly page HERE! I also do belly henna as well.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and happy painting!!


























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