I have to admit that St. Patrick’s Day is a difficult holiday for me when it comes to face painting designs, because I struggle to come up with fresh ideas. But this year, as I was mulling over St. Patrick’s Day, I thought it might be fun to take my popular pony design and give it a golden shamrock flair.
Materials
• TAG light green face paint
• TAG green face paint
• TAG pearl white
• Paradise white face paint
• Wolfe white face paint
• Diamond FX black face paint
• Paradise gold face paint
• Mehron gold powder
• Gold cosmetic glitter
• Sponge
• #5 round brush
• #3 round brush
• #1 round brush
Tutorial
Begin by sponging a combination of TAG pearl white and Paradise white over the eyelids. This will give a light base which ties the entire design together.
Use your #5 round brush and Wolfe shite to create a horse’s head close to the center of the forehead. My horse will not have the My Little Pony shape, but instead I chose a shape of a real horse, even though the eye I add later will be a bit more cartoonish.
Using the same brush, curve the back of the horse over the eyebrow and around to the corner of the eye.
Load your #3 or #5 round brush with TAG light green and swirl the pony’s mane over the forehead.
Using the same brush, add the mane as it sweeps down and around the inner corner of the eye and the tail on the cheek.
Load your #3 round brush with the darker TAG green and outline the mane and tail.
Add water to your Paradise gold and sprinkle a little Mehron gold powder onto it. Mix it together with your #3 round brush, and place five golden shamrocks (three leaves each) on the mane and tail. Also add some golden swirls throughout the mane and tail. Put a little gold cosmetic glitter on your finger tip and tap it onto each shamrock for extra glimmer.
On the other eye, sponge some light green over the white to balance the design. With your #3 round brush and darker green, add some teardrops at the corner of the eye.
Create a green and gold scalloped edge around these, and then place a couple of golden shamrocks on top.
Load your #1 round brush with black and add the details to the horse’s head as well as outlining the horse, shamrocks, and teardrops to make them stand out.
As a final step, use your #1 round brush and Diamond FX white to add tiny dots and starbursts all over the design.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Beth MacKinney is the owner of and primary face painter for Face Paint Pizzazz in the NW Chicago suburbs. She also writes blog posts for Facepaint.comand articles for Examiner.com as the Chicago Face Painting Examiner.