A Weekend in the life of a Face Painter
Friday
3.30pm
It’s an after-school kids’ party at a restaurant that has a soft play area, the place is closed to the public and the mums sit at the bar drinking wine, the children are excited and queue up for their numbers, I get to the promised 20 expecting an extra 2 or 3 but today it’s ok, no surprise additions. The 2 hours pass quickly, Spiderman, Batman and unicorns get painted fast and sweated off even faster. I’m not offered a drink but never mind. I paint all the kids, close my converted bass guitar case and leave on the dot.
7pm
is a wedding Reception at a fancy hotel. I arrive during that weird lull between the food and the disco, I look for the bride and can’t see her but find a bridesmaid who screeches in excitement and leads me to an incredibly dark corner to set up. Little girls in cream dresses circle my table. Its too dark to see and I ask for a light, someone appears and turns an overhead spot in my direction, it does nothing but cast a sharp shadow on peoples’ faces. I find my headtorch and pull it on. I look like an idiot but at least I can see. I paint all the kids and do some glitter and with fifteen minutes to go start to think about packing up, I’m tired and everyone’s now drunk. Then a guy in a grey waistcoat appears, weaving his way towards me, tie around his head, pint in hand, mates in tow. I wait for it. One of the men puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out his wallet, he sways and nearly falls backwards, everyone laughs. He lurches forward waving money in my face “I’ll pay you 30 quid to paint a penis on this guy’s forehead.” As usual I decline his kind offer. Long ago I accepted out of embarrassment and inexperience and when I’d finished the blokes fell about in hysterics then told me they didn’t have any cash.
Saturday
Kids birthday parties. Straightforward. A few kids sneeze in my face, some of it goes in my mouth. Hosts are nice, ask if I’d like a coffee or tea, offer food and cake. A good day’s work done.
Saturday night is a house call to paint a masquerade mask – I always get nervous doing these, I’m not overly confident with intricate line work especially when it has to be symmetrical and the person is depending on you for a great end result. So I do what I always do, get stuck in and hope for the best. Thankfully she likes it and I even get a tip. Phew.
Sunday
My regular lunchtime restaurant job, I love Sundays, it’s a great gig and I’ve been doing it about 3 years. I do 12.30-2.30pm and on special occasions like Mother’s Day and Easter Sunday I do double shifts. Sometimes it’s non-stop with the same children asking to be painted between courses, other days I may paint one unicorn in 2 hours but I get free coffee and the ocean views are beautiful all year round. Today I paint my regular customers and some new ones too. During quiet moments I practise roses on my arm, I paint rose after rose, they all look the same and I don’t like any of them.
3-4pm. A rare bump paint. I hardly do any of these, don’t know why, it’s just not really taken off here. I work on the floor, knees folded under and get pins and needles after about 2 minutes. The only other position is to paint with my legs open wide. I choose pins and needles.
How to build a website and why you absolutely need one!
How to build a website and why you absolutely need one!
A lot of clients will want to see your website, not just a facebook or instagram page, especially if you are applying for a photoshoot, agency or corporate job etc, some people will not even reply to you if you do not provide them with a website address. I tried to refer my friend for a job I couldn’t take who had told me she was available, but when the client asked me for her website, I could only give her a facebook and instagram page, and she wouldn’t even take her phone number from me. Think about it the other way around. If you were looking for suppliers for your event, or if you were looking at shoes from an independent seller for example, would you be happy going through a social media page or would you rather look at their website? I personally will not buy something or hire a service from anyone if they do not have a website.
It’s also really important you make your website really easy to negotiate, and that all the information your client needs is easily available to them, you want to make it easy for them to get in touch with you and book! Yes, there is a cost to having a website, and it will require some work to keep it up to date with images of your best work, any promotions you might be running and even your own blog if that’s something you want to attach to your website! Like a lot of things, you can choose how much you want to spend on your website, and how many benefits you want to get from it, and Wix do actually offer a free hosting option with their own advertising banners, so if you are worried about the cost, you can do this to see how you get on before committing yourself to a contract.
In the video I’m going to show you how to build and edit your website using Wix, just because that is what I use and what I have access to, but there are various other website hosts for you to choose from if Wix isn’t for you.
Before we start
Just a quick one before we start, it is REALLY important that all your files and photos are well organised so you can easily find them to upload to your website. If you don’t have space on your laptop (because photo’s can take up a lot of space!), get yourself an external hard drive to store all your photo’s on. I only keep very up to date images I frequently use on my laptop, partly because it’s only dinky (it fits in my handbag!) and doesn’t have a lot of hard drive space, and I keep lower quality images and older portfolio bits on my external hard drive, as well as a backup folder with all my current, up to date work.
Please find here the link to the website created in the video
https://mazzloxton.wixsite.com/mysite
And Please find here my two websites if you would like to have a snoop!
https://www.thepixietribe.co.uk
https://www.mazzloxton.com
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