In this webinar, learn Pro Techniques with Prima Barton!

Design: On the Job Ox

I just wanna talk about the difference between on-the-job one stroking and the one that you would usually see being posted on the internet that is their major artwork. I am one of those people who is guilty of this. When on the job, I try to make it a lot more simpler but if I'm going to do artwork on myself, I will do realism. But to be a pro, you have to know both.

So my style of visualizing the animal look and transferring it to my face or to someone's face is basically placing everything at the same spot. The eyes will go where my eyes are, my nose will go where the nose is, and the mouth will go where the mouth is on my face.

We are going to grab our 3/4" flat brush. I have made my own one stroke color right here but you can pick whichever color you want. I am going to load my one stroke, picking up some of the black. The black is not just for edging. You assume where the shadow falls and that's where you place the darker color or the black. You can use that to actually add a little bit of a three-dimensional (feel) when you're painting. 

I always go on the forehead first because when you have people with shorter hairlines or bigger foreheads, you can estimate how far or how big the design can be or how elaborate you'd like it to be. So I always go where the forehead bit is first which includes the eyebrows and we're going to make this a boyish one, give it a really angry eyebrow, and then we're gonna place the eyelid.

If it's a long-faced animal, I would follow this guideline. Starting from the outer corner of the eyes, you'd round it out right in the middle of the cheekbone in line with the middle of the eyes. If it's a round-faced animal, you would round it out below the cheekbone.

When creating a three-dimensional one stroke, you have to learn to flip your brushes back and forth otherwise, you'll have one dimension.

So now I'm creating the lip. We are going to try and create the lip part where the lip is, and the mouth where the mouth is. 

So the ox right has the ear right beside where the eyes are and that's where you have to position it as well but sometimes it's not big enough. That's why we try to make most of design just right in the center because the space right outside is where you put all the knick knacks, like the ears of the animal or the horn. Don't go too far out from the eyes. 

Here comes the layering. The part of the painting that is behind, that's what you would paint first. The hair is above the horn so we're going to paint the horn first before the hair. The horn is like a cylindrical kind of shape so when using a one stroke 3/4" flat brush, you have to use both sides and you gotta angle that as you go to a point.

The key points that you gotta remember to come up with a pro kind of design is the middle of the eyes, the middle of the nose, and the cheekbones. It should be a square. So now we're going to start the horns where the middle of the eyes are, and then we are going to make a stroke upwards.

The hair is actually lighter than the entire face. I've reloaded the same color, then I have dipped the tip of it into white to change it, and then we are going to create those strokes of the mane. Do zigzag strokes. And then of course, there's the dimpling on the middle of the head. 

Because this is an on-the-job design, all I'm going to line is just around the mouth and then the nostrils, and then I'm going to outline the eyes with eyelashes, and then just where the eyebrows are. 

I'm using just a double loaded petal brush to make the flower. When you're doing petals, try not to make them too close to each other otherwise there'll be no separation. We'll do 5 petals. So as you can see, because of the double loading with the darker color on the inside, there's still a separation in there.

Here's a new technique that I have adapted because I don't want to go back in & use another brush. The other end of my brush is rounded enough so I use that to do that little dot in the middle.

Products Mentioned in the Webinar:

Sally-Ann Lynch Face Painting Practice Board - Female
Prima Barton 3/4" Flat Brush
Kraze FX Splash Split Cake Palette
Kraze FX Split Cake - Puppy
Prima Barton 1" Flat Brush
Prima Barton #6 Flora Brush

If you missed the live webinar, you can watch it now in the video above or later on our YouTube channel. Thank you, Prima, for sharing your talents with us! Thank you to everyone who tuned in to the webinar. Click here to know our upcoming webinars.