When I took Olga Meleca’s class this year while she was touring the United States, she kept telling me to make certain designs larger. But for this lovely mini fairy and arm bouquet, miniature is okay. In fact, it lends a delicacy which is reminiscent of Tinkerbell.

Materials

• Kryvaline split cake Metallic Glowgaze
• Irridescent cosmetic glitter
• A 1/2 inch angle brush
• #1 round brush
• #3 round brush
• Paradise Bold Round brush (1/4 inch size)
• Sponge
• TAG pearl white face paint
• TAG pearl rose face paint
• Paradise dark pink face paint
• Diamond FX or Wolfe white face paint
• Diamond FX or Wolfe black face paint
• TAG green face paint

Tutorial

1. Begin by sponging some TAG pearl white for a background color for the design. In the final product, this will help tie the parts of the image together and create a filmy, light quality for the overall design.

2. Load a half-inch chisel brush from a couple colors on your Kryvaline Metallic Glowgaze split cake. I chose the purple and blue on mine for this. Carefully make some fairy wings over the pearl white area. Remember that this is a delicate fairy. These wings are going to be smaller and more slender than butterfly wings would be.

3. Add some glitter while the wings are still wet. Load your #1 round brush with Diamond FX or Wolfe black. The fairy body is tiny, and may take practice before you’re satisfied with it. It doesn’t have many parts. Start by making a dot for the head above the wings. Below this, make an upside down triangle for her upper torso, and a add a wispy skirt below it. As you work on the fairy’s arms and legs, be careful to keep them in proportion to the body. Each section of arm or leg is really just an elongated teardrop. The first time I tried this, I made the arms a little too long and had to start over. Check out Lisa Joy Young’s fair tutorial on painting fairies if it gives you trouble.

4. Load the #1 brush with Diamond FX or Wolfe white for outlining the wings. You want them to look gauzy, so the lines should be slender.

5. Again, using the #1 brush and Diamond FX or Wolfe white, add swirls, dots, and starbursts. At this point, you could be totally finished with your arm fairy, if you were in a hurry and had a long line. If you’d like to dress the image up, though, keep reading.

6. To place your fairy in a bouquet or garden, load your large round brush with a combination of Paradise dark pink and TAG pearl rose. Work some white into the tip and press to place several large pink flowers randomly around the fairy.

7. Take a smaller round brush, such as the #3 round brush, and load it with white, this time dipping the tip in pink. Add these smaller flowers here and there in the remaining spaces. You can use the same small brush to add some green leaves.

This summer I’ve found that designs of this type have been very popular with adult women, so I hope you enjoy creating small arm fairies and bouquets for your clients as well.

Beth MacKinney is the owner of and primary face painter for Face Paint Pizzazz in the NW Chicago suburbs. She also writes for Examiner.com as the Chicago Face Painting Examiner.