Father’s Day doesn’t get as much press as Mother’s Day, but plenty of kids like to celebrate their dad’s special day with a cool Father’s Day design. Enjoy this tutorial with graffiti-style lettering for any events you have this Sunday. (And keep in mind that it’s a simple matter to change out the letters to BFF—best friends forever or short names to increase your graffiti repertoire.)

Materials

• Diamond FX Lobster Luau split cake
• Diamond FX black face paint
• Diamond FX white face paint
• Sponge (1/2 circle)
• #1 round brush

Tutorial

1. One of the beautiful things about this design is its simplicity. Not only will it fit on an arm nicely, but you can also curve it around the eye for a great face design. Load your sponge from the Diamond FX Lobster Luau split cake, just using the yellow, orange, and red section. If you need to scrunch your sponge a bit to do this, that’s okay. It will still work well.

This part is a little more tricky, so be careful. Position the sponge on the skin, always thinking of the shape of your letter, and start with the bottom letter D, which will be on the front, since the other letters will appear to be behind it as you go up. Gently tap out your letter shapes. If you need to clean up edges with a wet wipe when you’re finished before doing your outlining, that’s okay.

2. Load your #1 round brush with Diamond FX black, which is a beautiful lining deep black. Carefully outline your letters. Graffiti-style lettering tends to be chunky and exaggerated in shape. Experiment on a piece of paper first to make sure you’re sure of your lines if you haven’t tried it before. They can be as simple or elaborate as you like and still have a graffiti flavor to them.

3. At this point, your design is looking bold and vivid, which I love for a dad design. As a last step, we’re going to brighten it and bring it to life with highlights using Diamond FX white and the #1 round brush.

And in three simple steps, you’re finished with this cool dad design for Father’s Day.

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.