Diary of a Seeboden contestant and winner of 5th place, World Face Painting Awards.

I was visiting the UK when Bibi Freeman asked if I’d be her assistant at the World Body Painting Festival in Seeboden, Austria.  Thinking it was a great opportunity, I registered online and was surprised when Alex the organiser rang to persuade me to enter the World Face Painting award too.  This led to many sleepless nights and a lot of worrying!

Due to a series of travel disasters, we arrived in Seeboden after midnight instead of at 9.00 am!  We were keen to get out to the launch party in the local castle despite the late hour.  We changed straight away into our fairy outfits and off we went to catch the end of the Body Circus Ball where, for a few hours, we watched the bizarre spectacle of hundreds of painted and costumed guests dancing amongst the castle’s antique torture devices.

Seeboden hosts the event, and has spray-painted shop dummies dotted around the town in honour of the occasion, set against the stunning scenery and traditional buildings. The Festival itself was on the shores of the lake surrounded by mountains.  Hundreds of white tents, many shaded by trees, lined dusty paths.  Some held tables for artists; others sold paint-related products or Native American crafts. Huge screens broadcast the festival’s past and current events, when not showing close-ups of the painted models on stage.  Food stalls and bars surrounded that, and randomly decorated people wandered about.  Photographers swarmed everywhere.

Friday – Body Painting First Round:
This was the first official day (before that it was all ‘fun’ trips and workshops), 100 'Brush & Sponge' teams were painting “In The Year 2525”. (The 'Airbrush' and 'Special Effects' categories had the same theme but would paint on Saturday).  Two painters were allowed per team, but many also had assistants for other things. 

Bibi’s idea was that in 2525, either aliens had taken over our DNA, (hence the tail down a leg & metallic/scaly side), or that we were in tune with the Earth and used our healing quartz crystals to repair and protect ourselves. It was a blazing-hot, 40-degree day; models were fainting; bars were raided for ice for them to stand on (the only un-painted bits of skin were soles of their feet!).  Thankfully our model Charlie was fine.  Bibi started by sketching in the basic design and chose her colours, then we got stuck in.  I learned a lot and met the stickiest substance ever, capable of gluing Grimas pots to my fingers - strong hair gel!

Six sweaty hours of painting later and feeling filthy as thousands of spectators stirred up dust which coated everything, we waited behind the scenes in the most bizarre queue ever to show our ideas to the seven judges.

It took several hours for Charlie to finish posing for photographers, for the judges, along the river path, and in the main Photo Area. Then we shuffled through fascinated crowds, and queued up for her to display our artwork to the public and TV cameras on the main stage.

At around 9.00 pm, we at last got to eat “lunch”.  Over 30 teams qualified, and we were overjoyed to hear we were 17th!  That evening, the World Fluoro Awards display also took place but by that time we were too tired to watch it, let alone go to any of the after parties.

Saturday – Face Painting:
The day began with both Bibi and I choosing a model from the line of hopefuls at the arranged meeting point – it was quite scary!  The theme for the World Face Painting Award was ‘Dreams & Illusions’.  I designed a dream-catcher face inspired by the fact that I have been contracted to design and make 20,000 of them with Hong Kong schoolchildren! 

In Native American legends the spider goddess’ web traps bad dreams until the rising sun destroys them.  I painted a gold abstract web over a dreamy night sky background and added tiny crystals for the good dreams, with dawn-clouds and sun rays around her décollete.  Her parents and the crowd kept commenting as I worked, and the judges really stuck their noses close - I almost painted one! I had worried that I would panic but luckily, I didn’t.  I finished on time and was so happy with what I had done, I was grinning like a loon the rest of the week!

Bibi’s entry, the ‘Money/Gambling Demon’ was gorgeous.  Off we set on the photography trek, then queued up for our stage presentation. Watching my artwork on stage, to music I had chosen, was fabulous!  Due to a technical hitch, organisers announced the Face Painting Awards early. One winner was swimming, and no-one had their models with them (which was annoying as I didn’t know who did what apart from the Wolfes and Mark Reid). First prize, well-deserved, was Bibi!  I was really happy that I hadn’t disgraced myself, even before they released the ranking list – and I was delighted to come in fifth!

Sunday - The Body Painting Finals:
The final theme for all bodypainting categories was “Chaos & Control”.  Bibi created a heart-shaped face-butterfly on Charlie’s back, blending into a whirlwind representing chaos - flapped wings causing a storm - down one leg and a calm day with a dandelion clock on the other.  One of Charlie’s hands completed the rusty ‘Lovelock’ padlock on her front with a chain attached to its key painted on her hand (environmentalist, James Lovelock, said that if we left the Earth alone, it would heal itself). The other hand completed the closed hasp, so she could pose locked, use her key to ‘open’ it, then turn to show the chaos.

During the final shows, a freak storm blew out the stage and scattered the crowd, the competitors, the equipment…  Only ourselves and the Wolfes were back to watch the stage being ‘flamed’ to dry it, but after a while they did manage to salvage things and get started again!  Congratulations to Carly & Carolyn, who won with their gorgeous Thai goddess body.  We were delighted to come in 14th place overall. To end the festival we hid inside a bar tent (it was pouring with rain) and watched a great fireworks show.

So, not much partying but a whole lot of painting!

My main impression of competing in this festival was painting, heat, dust, queuing, and cleaning (both me and kit), repeated daily over the 3 days. We were too tired or busy to watch most of the shows (during many of them we were waiting behind the scenes to be judged or for our turn onstage) and could have done with a lot more sleep! I wish I had had more (any!) time to stand in front of the stage and actually watch the models presentations.

Also painting but not competing were heroines of mine, like Raphaelle Fieldhouse (doing display bodies for Kryolan) and Emma Cammack (working on a lovely sports-celebrity for a charity calendar). I would have really loved to watch them and other artists at work too, but then would have needed about 40 of me to study the ones I liked the best!

 
Emma Cammack; Mark Reid painting Tiana Tong, and Brian Wolfe warming up for his stage show

I would not advise beginners to try to compete for the first time at something like this. It was really stressful for many of the professional painters who were already used to working in front of huge crowds, under pressure. But at this event, it was even scarier as a high proportion of the audience were well informed on face & body art, which as we all know is not a normal situation. There was also the added stress of the non-industry audience who often asked questions, and sadly, mixed in with them were a number of people there to get ‘dodgy’ photos of the models.

It was not just our painting that was scrutinised  - our design, ideas, interpretation, presentation and the few props allowed were important too. Luckily for the body rounds, the model’s hair could be styled in advance, and our Charlie’s mum was a hairdresser.  For the face competition it was up to us, within the actual painting time!  Stage ‘performances’ seemed to take as much effort as the painting – some teams had amazing routines, with fire-eating, acrobatics, choreography- you name it!  Our efforts were fairly low-key in comparison but even picking the music was stressful!

 
Cat amongst the Wolfes

And then there were the famed artists who were also entered in both the body and face painting awards – Mark Reid and Nick Wolfe to name two of the most well-known in the UK - but many of the stars from other countries whose work you would recognise were taking part too.  It was terrifying to see that much talent on display, and know we were being judged amongst it.  We went to an exhibition of photos from past festivals, and you could see that the skill levels have risen every year. With such great creations being shown it isn’t surprising standards are so high there!

But I would love to go (and compete?) again!  Go along to watch if you get the chance!