Chatty Tuesday – Abigail’s Face and Body Art

Abigail’s Face and Body Art is a super creative company, painting for everything from kids birthday parties to big corporate events and charity galas. We can’t get enough of the awesome designs these guys crack out and are really excited about their face painting workshops coming up soon too….read on for more info!

Tell us a little bit about yourself

My name is Abigail, a professional face and body painting artist running Abigail’s Face and Body Art and a proud single mum to beautiful 3.5 year old boy. I’m a Filipino Chinese raised in Hong Kong and have been passionate about painting since young. Interestingly I came into contact with face painting 6 years ago while I was taking a break from teaching children painting due to a knee operation and fell in love with it ever since.

How long have you been in Hong Kong and what do you do?

I’m a professional face and body painter who also runs face painting workshops for children, adults and professional face painters. 

How did you discover your talent/when did you discover your passion?

I had always enjoyed teaching children painting and fell in love with face painting while recovering from a knee operation. It wasn’t just the painting but the fact that painting at events and parties brought me so much joy because of all the amazing smiles I see at every event that I paint at. 

What do you love most about what you do?

Face painters around the world call it “The mirror moment” – the moment when we pick up a mirror and show the kids their painted faces. I also enjoyed painting while keeping the child entertained at the same time, it maybe a few short minutes for us but could be something very special for them. It is not just a beautiful painting that matters but also bringing the children a memorable face painting experience so that they’ll remember it for a long time and get excited to get their face painted next time. I thoroughly enjoy painting each face and feel really blessed to be able to do what I love and to be surrounded by happy faces all the time. Another thing I really like about face painting is that I always get new design requests from kids without displaying a standard designs board, this was great as I get to experiment with new designs and challenge my skills, that helps me to become a better painter. There is so much I love about what I do I can just go on forever!

On body painting from camouflage to fancy body painting , I love that my canvas is 3D and that I have to work at a fast pace to get the piece completed before the model gets too tired. It’s a challenge that I had never encountered when painting on a normal canvas. You’d treasure every piece because it will eventually be washed off.

What/who inspires you to do what you do?

My son, he absolutely loves getting his face painted and it’s a very special feeling to paint your own child’s face. With him I get to try more elaborate designs and he always pretends to be an animal with others once his face is done.  What a great pleasure to experience this with my boy and more importantly I want to be a role model for pursuing what I really love to do. It makes it more difficult doing all this as a single mum without helper here but certainly not impossible, all you need is drive and the self discipline to stick with your plans. I enjoy every second of my job and I wish to encourage all youngsters out there to pursue a career that they are truly passionate about.

What’s been your favourite piece/project that you’ve worked on? 

I was extremely honoured to have participated the first ever Equatorial Guinea Bodypainting Festival last year with some of the best body painting artists around the world. We went around local schools of Equatorial Guinea painting children and painted in the festival celebrating bodyart, letting the locals enjoy the one of the kind festival celebrating face and body painting at the same time encouraging the local community to pursue their artistic instincts by running workshops for the locals. It was truly an inspiring experience and was the best thing that has ever happened in my face painting career. I am very excited to be back next year sharing quick face painting tips with the locals, for more information please visit their website.

What’s been the most challenging piece/project so far?

Most of the projects have their own challenges but in general I really enjoy the challenge of keeping the child still while painting a  design on his or her face, there are tricks and tips to do so and here is how our workshops for beginners and professionals come in handy! In the workshops I share on the job tips in addition to the skills and techniques of painting amazing designs, workshops are rather flexible either one on one or in small groups , at our venue or at the comfort of your home – Each workshop is catered to the participants’ goals, for more details please contact us via our website www.abigailsfaceandbodyart.com, or our social media page.  

Can you take us on a brief journey of how you bring a project together? 

Once an inquiry has come in we usually ask for the event date, time and location, for children’s parties we would ask for the estimate number of children to be painted, party theme, age of the birthday child etc…then we will send a quotation accordingly, once the client decided to go ahead we charge a 50% deposit and that’s it!  My favourite part is that for every party that I paint at I offer to paint as characters, either as Moana, unicorn, fairy and our recent additions which are both a hit – mermaid and princess Jasmine! Of course instead of just dressing up, painting beautiful designs with speed, it is also important to bring great energy while painting, this has long been my equation of being a successful face painting artist! 

For corporate events we very much handle it the same way, depending on whether it’s face painting for events guests, or body painting for commercials or events etc. We spend a great deal of time finding out what each client is looking to achieve for their event, including their concerns – I have always worked with people and I cannot emphasize more on the importance of customer service on top of delivering quality skills and efficiency during the booking.  

There are also face painting workshops coming up by Abigail’s Face and Body Art! Check out the picture below for more details!