It’s less than four weeks until the Just So Festival 2015, and a rainy day today gave us the opportunity to practice some tribal face paint in readiness for the big weekend. At Just So you can choose to join one of the tribes – owls, foxes, lions, fish, frogs, stags. Dressing up is optional, but lots of people do bring costumes and you can score points for your tribe in the big Tribal Tournament, with the winners announced after the tribes march in the Wild Rumpus on the Sunday evening.
This year Ez and I will be staying loyal to the owl tribe! We’ve been owls since our first year at Just So in 2013, and we don’t intend to switch our allegiance now. However, having worn the same costume two years running, Ez has declared that she needs a new costume for 2015, and she has some strong ideas on the design, so watch this space. She was exceedingly happy with her owl face paint, although a couple of hours later she decided that she needed more feathers on her face so we may need to adapt our design slightly on the festival weekend.
Fonz has developed a habit of switching tribes. An owl in 2013, he was a fox last year (he has a knack for picking the winning tribe) and this year he wants to be a frog. He was most impressed with this frog face paint, but he is considerably less obliging when it comes to sitting still than his sister, so I suspect that at the festival he will probably just have a green face.
If you fancying creating either of these looks yourself, they are pretty straightfoward – I’m no expert artiste. For the owl face paint, follow these steps (illustrated above)..
1. Use a sponge to apply white paint across the eyes (so it looks like a white eyemask).
2. Emphasise the eyebrows with dark brown paint (using a brush), and then use light, feathery lines to create the impression of feathers. Add in some white lights as highlights, and finish with some glitter (Ez is a big fan of glitter).
3. Bring out the eyes with a big sweep of dark brown across each one (I also added a sweep under each eye).
4. Finish with feathery white lines under each eye create the effect of more feathers, and a white beak on the nose. Oh, and plenty more glitter!
For the frog face paint..
1. Apply green paint all over the face with a sponge, leaving a bare circle around each eye.
2. Draw a large yellow circle around each eye, and then fill it with red, blending the red and yellow where they meet to avoid a really harsh line.
3. Get your subject to close their eyes (tricky when your small child needs to know what is going on around them at all times), and draw the black pupils vertically down the eyes.
4. Extend the mouth on each side using a sweep of green paint, and accentuate the top lip. I added spots of yellow and white across his face to give his skin a textured look.
To read more about our previous adventures with Just So click here. It’s become a firm fixture in our year, and it’s something that the whole family looks forward to, so we’re so excited that the time has almost come for us to set up camp in the beautiful Rode Hall grounds once again. Make sure you’re following me on Instagram, so you don’t miss any of the action!
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