Friday, July 13, 2007

June in UK - Naked or Not?

Well, VERY Glad to be back in the UK! Bus trip up from Heathrow at 5 am wasn’t too bad actually (SUN!), but it was very disturbing actually being able to understand conversations going on between other passengers around me. Then hitting civilisation (Norwich) I also hit a hitch. I’d arranged to meet Michelle for lunch and wanted to do a quick shop before I met her, having 2 hours to spare. But Norwich, a city, may I add, has NO left luggage, anywhere. As I was lugging a massive suitcase AND a normal sized one, I was Mmst unimpressed! Luckily I was able to leave them at Brian’s office and go off. After seeing Mich (and shopping!!!) he dropped me off at the train and Sue met me at the other end. Queue 1st proper bed since March – yay!


One of the first things I did in the UK was a class with master bodypainter Emma Cammack, at her home near Hungerford. She is famed for her amazing painted clothes, and flies all over the world, painting and teaching. Often she matches taped-on draped bits around the waist so closely you cant see what IS real and what isn’t. She also does fab abstract stuff. Anyway, I stayed overnight at Mums and using my new Tomtom car navigator, easily found her tiny village. 2 other ladies who I know from the internet face painters chat were also there.


Emma has converted her garage into a workshop, so the 1st day she mainly showed us ideas and techniques, and we had a few tries at things on our own arms etc. Lunch was amusing – her daughters paddling pool looked like there had been a chainsaw massacre! She uses old shop window clothes dummies to plan/ practice ideas on, and the pool was full of a half washed dismembered model. Which had obviously been mainly painted red! She has to re-spray them for white base between uses, but they do work- but we had a go painting motor bike leathers onto one.


That evening Emma showed me the local hotel/ pub, and I got a sweet room that had just been Ikea’d. Gorgeous area – real chocolate box village! I ended up having a long chat with the lady in 1 rose filled cottage - she used to live in Hong Kong! Back at the hotel, I stuffed on homemade sausages and mash – yum!


The second day of the course we each got given a ‘live’ model. I was lucky enough to get Lois, a lady who again I know from internet chats, as she often poses for body painters. Her husband, a human cannonball (cool job title!) from Mexico, was being painted in a football strip by 1 of the other ladies. As I have ‘done’ sports strips (just a bit - !) I decided to try jeans, lace and lacings, 3 techniques Emma had shown us. I did the corset top first.


Lois wore ‘pasties’, latex round domed bits which are glued over the nipples. It was a bit annoying as it showed up a lot – took the paint differently to skin –but some jobs you have to use them for legal or child-friendly reasons. I didn’t quite get the hang of denim fabric, but was pleased with the lacings (although I can’t get the hang of Emmas fast double-dipped brush thing).
I LOVE the lace I did, it really worked! I added shadows/ whites with powder, definitely getting that as it won’t pick up the layers below like trying to paint in highlights would. Think I scared Emma with the amount of dark I used but I always did like black in my art/ photos! That had taken until after lunch, and the others had done a top AND bottoms by then. So I went on to do shorts REALLY fast. Lois had on a white G-string, and I managed to use it as some of the seams.

Again I didn’t quite get the shadows/ wrinkle right – hopefully if I ever get a ‘real’ job like this I will have reference photos which will make it even more realistic.





Emmas husband is a professional photographer (or will be when he quits the USAF) so he took a load of shots which I hope will be better than mine! Lois actually put her jeans back on but just a cardi on her top for the drive home! She would get away with it I think – a bit cowboy/ Brittney but passable!

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