Just One Thing

Are you stuck in a rut?  You can increase creativity in just 30 seconds if you change Just One Thing …

It’s easy to stay inside your comfort zones, restricting yourself to familiar patterns and designs. To keep your face painting fresh and continually improve your skills, think about ways to boost your creativity and produce unique designs (almost) every time you paint.

But you will sometimes find you go blank or switch into automatic!  ‘There’s no time to think of anything different – it’s quicker to just do the same thing.’

I want you to challenge this and break the habits of the years.

I want to show you how with a 30-second thought process, you too can come up with some different ideas.  At first it might take longer.  But with practice it will eventually become second nature and get faster and faster.

The more you say to yourself  ‘Just One Thing’, the more you will activate that ‘muscle’ in your brain and stimulate the creativity neural pathways. These will strengthen each time you find something different to do.

You will also find that you get a lovely boost of satisfaction that it worked!

So I challenge you!

To help you and remind yourself, each time the next child jumps in the chair, I suggest you say the same thing every time.

Just one thing …

What can you change?

Here are some prompts and I suggest you make a list of your own, but how will you remember them?   I have come up with an acronym which you may like to use – CLASS ACT

Alternatively, you can keep it even simpler and use four words:  Colour, Shape, Linework and Theme

Perhaps a little rhyme might jog your memory – try saying this to yourself when someone sits down

                   Colour bright, shapes that flow,
                   Linework sharp, themes that glow

So now you have stopped the automatic pilot and you’re thinking!

The next step – what ideas can you use to change your work?

Let’s assume the child asked for a Tiger.  Say to yourself ‘Just One Thing’

Then say ‘I’m going to do a CLASS ACT’ – run through the words and select just one.

Colour:  You could change the colour of the base – give the child a few choices of alternatives to orange. Perhaps change where you normally place your main colours. Load a sponge with lots of different colours.

Linework:  What different lines could you do?  Swirls, zig-zag, tribal, dots – use a different brush, flat, filbert, dagger, rake.  Try a one-stroke.  Do fewer or more lines, make them shorter or fatter, cross them over.

Ask:  Talk to the person and see if they have something in mind, or  pick up on their personality – perhaps they are very pink, girly and twirly, or maybe a bit goth and love black, or maybe love some experimenting.

Shape:  How can you interpret this?  If a princess is usually with a kind of diamond shape on the forehead – what other shape could you do?  A pirate may have an eye patch – perhaps make it triangular or heart-shaped. The markings on a leopard could change from round to square or spiral.  Have some shapes in your mind and experiment.

Stencil:  if you don’t often use them, perhaps include one in this design.  Maybe your tiger could have a rose in the centre, or a background of dots or snowflakes.  Your flowery design could have a fairy sitting amongst it or a tribal background.  Just be brave and use one you don’t normally choose for a change!  See how it looks!

Art:  This can be wide open to your own interpretation.  Quite useful when you have a blank canvas and the client doesn’t mind – or wants a surprise.   Think about an artist you like.  Monet – do some dots, Picasso – make it rather wild and splashy.   Or a period in history – Baroque, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Elizabethan …

Clothes:  This is one of the easiest places to find inspiration.  Just look at what they are wearing and pick up patterns, colours, print.  It could be the sparkly boots, or the flowery dress or simply blue jeans.  Jewellery, bags and accessories can also help you.

Theme:   This is as wide as it is long with ideas!  Fantasy, mythology or different cultures from around the world – Roman, Egyptian, African, Indian, Mexican, Japanese.   Nature, animals, plants and landscapes, weather, seasons.

All these ideas won’t come to you immediately on the first job, so you may want to make some notes in a little book and keep it with you so you can quickly flip it open and find something to help you.

Be brave, be bold and experiment – you will be amazed at the reactions you receive!

Become the face painter that everyone wants to book

because you have something special to bring

Good luck and have fun!