I have been an artist all my life, and a photographer for about 6 years now… but I am just a beginner at painting people and photographing the live art! I have a ton of ideas for paintings and photos outdoors, but while it is still winter, I have been working in studio. Here are some shots of my body paint/photography work (posted below). Some are airbrushed, and some are hand painted. All sessions have taken me about 3-4 hours to paint.
Above: Dani Jae – Silver Angel. Beauty Makeup by Erin Chaney. 02-2010 We had two set of wings from a previous photo shoot…. they were both hammered and falling apart, so I took the feathers from one and added it to the other “beefing it up” quite a bit. Then I randomly spray painted them with a silver metalic color we had lying around the house. My recent purchase of an airbrush gave me the inspiration to start body painting people, but the metallic body paint powder had to be sponged on and barely mixed with water. I didn’t want the straps to show from the wings, so we hung actually hung them from our chandelier with fishing wire and tied it to a tripod. Dani was painted from head to toe, but most shots are from the waste up because of the tripod.
Above: Becky Rockwood – Checkered Woman 02-2010. I actually airbrushed the background for this shot as well… I cut out a 3″x3″ square from some interfacing and used it as a template. And then I used a 2″x2″ square on her so that they would be about the same size if I had her stand away from the wall. I also like the soft box reflection and think it works out quite well adding to the checkers.
Above: Russ Lyman – Lizard Man 02-2010. I hand painted his face., and his tongue… Enough said. haha
Above: Russ Lyman – The Four Elements. A few days before this painting, I drew out several ideas on how to divide the four elements… it was hard to kind of meld them together, but I think it worked out. I bought some moss from the store, glued it on his pants and then airbrushed it brown for earth. Yes, it made a huge mess… and made trails wherever Russ walked, haha. I wasn’t sure how I was going to paint wind, but I think the swirl marks worked out. And I really like how the fire looks 
I was really nervous for this painting/shoot… but think was able to pull it off, lol.
Above: Pregnancy portrait of Kristin Forbes: Cherry Blossom Tree. 03-2010. I airbrushed her skin white and then tried to sketch out a tree with an eye liner pencil… my drawing was not working out but then came together later. I airbrushed blues over the original quick sketch and then decided to start again by just going for it, and hand painting the tree outline. I think it definitely worked out the second time. The cherry blossoms didn’t really stand out until the end when I added the pink highlights. I am kind of wishing that I continued the painting onto her arms, or carried over some flowers… but it still worked out well. I like this way it turned out
Above: “Colorful Cubism Man” Model: James Morris. I got this one published the front of the Catalyst Magazine in Salt Lake City, Utah (May 2010). We started out with browns, shot it on a brown background, and then he went under the airbrush for another two hours while I took the whole concept into a new direction with color. I think the yellow background worked out great, and of course James is a great model making the final images a total hit!
Above: Jaguar body painting, Model: Marta Mazzanti. This one was a family group effort with painting the background and model. We were visiting my brother in Seattle and Marta is one of his friends… we were more than happy to set up a body paint session with her while we were there. It would have been nice to take it outside for some orange and blue contrasting colors, but it was cold… so we took apart my brothers kitchen and set up our studio in there. Here is the body painting time lapse video: http://vimeo.com/11318115
Above: Blue Swirl Body Painting. Model: Dani Jae 2010. This one was a lot of fun… here is the time lapse video: http://vimeo.com/11071065
Click here to see my flickr gallery!
