Friday, November 14, 2014

How To Apply Makeup To Resemble A Bird

Hawks are a popular choice to recreate with face paint.


Bird makeup is an attention-grabbing way to accentuate a Halloween costume, or a fun activity for children's parties. In order to apply makeup to look like a bird, whether it be a peacock or a hawk, you need face paints in appropriate colors, a selection of paint brushes and white eyeliner. A wide variety of looks can be achieved by using different colors combined with the same basic application format.


Instructions


1. Fill the jar or cup with clean water and lay the face paint and supplies out on your workspace. Have your subject sit directly across from you, or sit in front of a mirror.


2. Use the white eyeliner to outline the beak on your nose. Draw an upside-down triangle that extends from the tip of your nose up the sides to the bridge. Contour the lines on either side to match your nose. Draw another triangle shape coming down from the bridge of your nose, with the point on the bridge. Connect the two triangles to make a beak shape.


3. Continue with the eyeliner, drawing a circle around each of your eyes. The inner sides of the circle should line up with the outline of the beak. Have the circles encompass your eyebrows and extend roughly one inch down your cheeks.


4. Fill the circle outlines with the face paint color of your choice -- such as brown for a hawk, or blue for a peacock -- covering your eyebrows. Use a medium-sized paintbrush. Clean your paintbrushes using the jar of water between colors.


5. Use a smaller paintbrush to fill-in the beak outline with orange face paint. Mix red and yellow to make orange, if your face paint palette does not come with the color.


6. Choose a small, stiff paintbrush. Apply the color of your choice in long, thin strokes around the perimeter of each of the filled-in circles around your eyes. Continue applying the paint in a similar way until you gain your desired feather effect. Consider incorporating different shades of the color, to add realism and depth to your bird makeup.


7. Use the same paintbrush to add shorter, thin strokes of a contrasting color within the feathers you painted on in Step 6. The effect will be, for example, brown eyes surrounded by a ring of golden feathers, which are followed by a ring of green feathers.


8. Add the final touches to your bird makeup. Using the black eyeliner, or a small, thin paintbrush with black face paint, outline your beak. Place a small black dot on each side of your beak to represent the bird's nostrils.