Although it’s short, fall is one of my favorite seasons. While Halloween designs are extremely popular, some events call for non-scary face painting options, so if you have an event coming up for which the organizers would like you to veer away from fright for the night, add this choice to your board.

Materials

• Paradise gold face paint
• Paradise light green face paint
• Paradise light brown face paint
• Paradise orange face paint
• Paradise yellow face paint
• Diamond FX white face paint
• Diamond FX black face paint
• Sponge
• #4 round brush
• #1 round brush

Tutorial

1. Begin by sponging the background area around the eye with your favorite metallic gold. I find a background color ties the design elements together. Another good choice would have been a light blue.

2. Using your #4 round brush, add the letters for the word “FALL” and put some leaves at either end of the design, using orange, green, yellow, and brown.

3. Load your #1 round brush with black and carefully outline the letters and leaves. I also put in my details on the leaves at this stage.

Once your letters are finished, add “stitching” to give them the appearance of cloth patches.

4. Load your small round brush with Diamond FX white (or Wolfe or Cameleon white) to add your highlights to the letters and leaves.

5. Finish with some windy flourishes, dots, and starbursts. Don’t feel limited to always use white for these. I could have chosen light blue for my “wind,” and it would have had the added advantage of being a complimentary color for the warm colors such as orange. Also, I could have added orange and yellow dots rather than white ones. Experiment to find out which color combinations work best for you.

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.