Unleash Your Creativity: Finding Faces Everywhere with Mara Zegers

We do it every single day on the job — princess, unicorn, puppy, spider. You've got those designs living rent-free in your head, and honestly, that's a good thing. But every once in a while it's fun to shake things up and paint something that came straight out of your own imagination.

That's exactly what Mara Zegers, joining us all the way from beautiful Holland, walked us through in this webinar. Instead of teaching one specific design, she taught us how to think — how to look at the ordinary stuff around you and turn it into a character nobody's ever seen before. If you've ever felt stuck in your creative rut, this one's for you.

The big word of the day: pareidolia

Mara kicked things off with a fun bit of psychology. Pareidolia (it's Greek) is that thing our brains do where we see faces and figures in random objects. It's why you stare up at the clouds and suddenly one looks like a bunny and another looks like a bicycle. It's why a knot in a piece of wood can look like a lion, or a roll of tape can look like a snail.

Here's the cool part: once you know this is happening, you can put it to work. That "oh, that kind of looks like a face" reaction is the seed of a brand-new design. Google the word "pareidolia" and you'll find endless funny pictures — plants that look like they've got bulging eyes, everyday objects with attitude. Great inspiration to keep in your back pocket.

Products:

Based on what Mara actually reached for on camera:

• Kraze FX "Royal Sunset" Split Cake — her warm orange/pink/purple base for the bird and octopus
• Kraze FX "Thrill" Split Cake — the vibrant green, blue, purple, and yellow set she used for feathers and details
• Kraze FX "Orchids" Split Cake — the purple base for the "Crazy Dust Bunny" monster
  
• Diamond FX Waxy Black — her go-to for crisp, opaque linework
• Diamond FX Waxy White— for highlights and the eye dots
• Blazin Brushes Flat Brush (half-inch) — used for loading the split cakes
• Aliyah Ultra Flat Brush #6 — plus assorted round brushes (#2 through #5) for details and veining

Turning a wallpaper swatch into a character

Mara's first trick is one you can literally pick up for free. Grab a few wallpaper or fabric swatches from the hardware store, drop a piece of clear plastic over one, and trace whatever shapes jump out at you with a bit of black paint. Slide a white sheet behind it so the busy background stops distracting you — and suddenly you're staring at the bones of a face.

From one swatch she found a snout, a smile, and a jawline. From another, an angry little ghost face. And from a third, a confused-looking bird — which became our first finished design of the day.

Meet the "Science Bird." Mara built him up with Kraze FX split cakes (Royal Sunset for the warm base, Thrill for those vibrant green-blue-purple feathers) because, as she pointed out, that complementary blue really makes the orange pop. She gave him bushy, condescending professor eyebrows, little round librarian glasses, and a beak that looks like he's about to correct your grammar. The crowd tossed out names all the way through — Professor Peacock, Blue Jay, Angry Bird — but "Science Bird" won the day.

Pro tip from Mara: Paint the eyes last. As artist Marci Kanter once told her, the kid won't notice, but the parents will — and the moment you drop that little white dot into the eye, the whole design comes alive.

Coffee stains, rice, and internet memes

Wallpaper isn't the only place faces hide. Mara showed how a coffee stain on a box looked like a little kid kneeling and holding something (pop a moon behind it and you've got a whole scene). She scattered a handful of rice and traced around it to make a fantasy map — the same basic idea behind the maps in Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones — or, if you squint, a face with eyes and a nose.

And then there are the memes. That's where design number two came from.

The "Crazy Dust Bunny." Inspired by one of those sad-looking-plant photos with bulging eyes and a crooked mouth, Mara built a fuzzy little monster with two mismatched eyes, a squiggly grin full of teeth, and hair that looks like it just got electrocuted. Purple base from the Kraze "Orchids" cake, furry details all over, and DiamondFX waxy black for the linework. The chat had a field day naming this one, but "Crazy Dust Bunny" stuck.

The best lesson here? Perfect is the enemy of fun. As Mara said, if a monster looks too symmetrical or too clean, it stops looking like a monster. Trust the process, keep going, and it usually turns into something way cooler than you first pictured.

The grand finale: a drunk boxing octopus

For her last design, Mara found a photo online that looked, to her, exactly like a drunk octopus with its fists up ready to fight. So naturally... she painted a drunk octopus with its fists up ready to fight.

Say hello to "Rocky Akboa." Crooked yellow eyes to sell that woozy look, yellow boxing gloves held up in defense, a bright pink Kraze octopus body with eight arms (you only really need to convince people there are eight — they don't count too hard), and shading kept consistent with the light source always coming from the same direction so you don't confuse yourself mid-paint. The chat suggested little stars circling his head like he just took a punch, and Mara ran with it.

Pro tip on paint types: Reach for waxy paint (like Kraze, TAG, DiamondFX, Wolfe) when you want crisp, opaque linework. Reach for glycerin-based paint (like Mehron, Kryolan, Superstar) when you want soft, blendable color — perfect for muzzles or a smooth tiger blend. Different jobs, different tools.

The one tip that ties it all together

If you take just one thing away from this session, let it be this: play around, and have fun with it. Set yourself little challenges. Look at the clouds, the coffee rings, the wallpaper, the weird plant on your windowsill. Ask what it reminds you of, then chase that idea onto the practice board. Your linework gets sharper, your color choices get faster, and your creativity keeps flowing.

Want more from Mara? Her pirate, birthday, and cartoon video game character webinars are all up on the Facepaint.com blog. Coming up soon we've also got a Pokemon webinar, a VIVID Glitter product demo with Jacqueline Howe, and a linework masterclass with Evel Wheldon.

Thank you to everyone who joined us live from all over the world — and to everyone who shops at Facepaint.com. You keep this whole community going, and we appreciate you.