The Mehron Intense powders have the advantage of sitting lightly on the skin and being durable under humid conditions, which makes them great for the hot summer months and entirely worth trying out. If you have the Mehron powders, give some of your go-to designs a try using them as I did with this standard peacock design.
Materials
• Mehron Intense palette Fire
• Black face paint (Diamond FX or Wolfe)
• White face paint (Diamond FX or Wolfe)
• Smoothie blenders (foam tip applicator)
• #2 round brush
• Makeup primer
• Ben Nye glitter glue
• Glitter
Tutorial
Before I put any powder on my face, I rubbed a thin layer of primer over the general area I was planning to use the Mehron powders on. The primer causes the powders to adhere to the skin better, and also gives them a more brilliant look than they would otherwise have.
Load your smoothy blender (foam applicator) with the pale green and fill the inner eye area under the eyebrow. Next use the green on the outer eyelid and finally blend the royal blue in as you reach the outer edge of the peacock body.
Make the S-curve of the neck with a circle for the head at the top, again using the medium green and the blue.
Add three blue dots coming down from the peacock. These will be the centers of each peacock feather. Use a fresh smoothy blender to add an orange beak.
Add orange around the blue on the feathers in a teardrop shape. (If you're uncertain of the shape, refer to the final image.) These shapes aren't going to be distinct, but that's normal for applying powder with a foam applicator versus applying face paint with a brush. You just want the basic shape to be there, and you'll add the distinct outline with face paint later.
Create the black outline with regular black face paint and a #2 or #3 round brush.
Add white highlights, dots, and starbursts with a #2 or #3 round brush.
The design could be completely finished at this point, but if you would like to add sparkle to your design in spite of powders being dry and not sticky, you can use Ben Nye glitter glue (which is washable with soap and water) to add glitter to areas such as the peacock feathers.
NOTE: While I did use some chunky glitter in my example, chunky glitters are NOT RECOMMENDED for use on children or for use around the eyes or eyelids.
Beth MacKinney is the owner of and primary face painter for Face Paint Pizzazz in Elgin, Illinois, and her artwork has appeared in The Colored Palette and SkinMarkz magazines. She services Elgin, Illinois, the NW Chicago suburbs, and northern Chicago, as well as the eastern suburbs of Rockford. Stop by Facepaint.com to check out her other face painting blog posts and tutorials.