Wonder Mommy to be Belly Painting by Kellie Burrus

Gestational Baby Bump paintings are always such a treat. It’s a wonderful experience and keepsake for mom when she combines the final makeup with a photography package. Being prepared for the special commission of a gestational painting is important.

In this tutorial I discuss placement, color and the over all design. I hope you enjoy!

Products used:

- MODA Pro Sculpt Brush

- Loew-Cornell Round Brush #8 

- Loew-Cornell Round Brush #5

- Loew-Cornell Round Brush #2

- Always Wicked Art Half Round Sponges

- FAB Face Paint Bright Yellow

- FAB Face Paint Fire Red

- FAB Face Paint White

- FAB Face Paint Black

- FAB Orange Face Paint in Tiger Split Cake

- Diamond FX Metallic Blue

- Wolfe Skinz Palette (sub Diamond FX Skins Palette)

- TAG White

- TAG Black

- Mehron Paradise Dark Brown

- Pasties (optional)

Step 1:

Depending on what your client is comfortable with, prepare with pasties or a nude bra (the model here is wearing pasties). Sketch the design out loosely with a thin round brush and white paint.

You want to be sure that the focus of your design (the baby) is large enough and placed in a very visible area for the pictures. I ask mom to stand up to make sure. 

Using a brush that will carry a lot of paint (I used the MODA pro sculpt brush) fill in the areas of your design with the colors you plan on using. Here I have filled in the gold areas and red areas using a yellow and red.

Step 2: 

Here I filled in the background “sky” area with a pearl blue, buffing the color gradually toward the baby. 

As you can see mom spilled a little water on her red and yellow, I fix that later.

Step 4:

For this step I used a baby wipe and wipe paint away in areas where I plan to create white stars. I also filled in the baby with a skin tone matching mom and fill in the babies cloud, diaper and cape.

Step 5:

At this stage I use a white paint with a sponge to add shimmery highlights to the yellow/gold on both the top piece and the belt. I also use orange and a sponge to add highlights to the red parts of her “suit” wherever the light would naturally fall. * I asked mom to stand up again for this part.

Step 6:

Next I used brown paint and a sponge to add some shadow to the yellow in the top piece and the belt. The brown helps to give the illusion that it is a shiny gold.  I also loaded a sponge with black and shaded the red parts of her “suit”. 

I mixed some white with the shimmery blue and filled in around the stars. Using that same mixture I shaded the cloud. 

Using a sponge loaded with white I added soft highlight on the babies skin and eyelids.

I used a round brush loaded with white to highlight the babies cape and diaper and to add highlights and dots in and around the stars.

Step 7:

In this step I used a round brush and strong black paint to outline most of the design and adding a super hero style curl for the baby. I also used some dark blue paint loaded on a round brush to add some shading to the stars and cloud. 

Step 8:

In the final step I use a round brush loaded with a strong white and highlight where needed, paying special attention to areas of the yellow/gold to make it “shine” and to the babies hair and skin.

Painting bellies is a blast! Have fun!