I’ve been curious about using stencils to paint on skin and decided yesterday to stop over at my favourite face painting shop Kool4Kats and try a couple out. I came home with two mini Bad Ass stencils:

 Using a small sponge and keeping it fairly dry, the stencils come up like this on the skin:

It takes a little practice to get the paint quantity correct – too much and you smudge the design, too little and you don’t transfer any paint. A smaller sponge helps with controlling exactly where the paint goes too. Here’s both stencils used over a solid colour base:

 The floral stencil was trickier to master due to such tiny cut outs, but the effect is superb! I would not want to be whipping this out for very busy parties or markets, it does take time to let the underpaint dry, and hold the stencil still particularly around curves on the body. If I have time however, this makes for excellent lace, wings, and gives a velvet brocade effect if painted over a lighter or darker tone of the same colour (light/dark pink for example).

 I’m looking forward to playing more with them, it’s been a fun day of painting today and I’m feeling inspired and excited!