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Glasgow Face Painting and Juggling Convention
The Facepainters Perspective (from Val)
The following note was taken from
rec.juggling
and reproduced with kind permission.
Hello, I am recovering slowly, risen to the clamour
for info on the
weekend with these two emails. You did such a fantastic
job, and folk
appreciated the weekend so much.
Thankyou, thankyou,
Val
Part 1
Friday Night
Glasgow was covered in a carpet of snow, coupled with
the high winds it
made travel difficult.I arrived after sorting out
the kids things at
about 8pm,(I had Caspar 15, Zoe 13, and Beth 9 with
me) entered the hall
to find Dobby, Anne Arden, Emily,Rick, and Carole
in the hall.
Brilliant, piles of hugging, and could not believe
we were actually
there! I went into the main juggling hall, and just
STARED, all these
guys doing totally amazing things with every type
of juggling equipment
you could imagine. Never seen anything like it before.
Tall, short,
smart, hippy, german, french, english... total variety.
Eventually we
tore ourselves away to the Indian takeaway. Grabbing
our brochure to get
the discount. We met Lorry and Kate from Tactical
Magic enroute.10 mins
walk away we ordered and waited for the food. Took
a wee while, so
grateful Anne brought the gin to keep the party spririt
going. Back to
the hall, and sat and watched the show of all these
guys doing their
bit. We yacked, ate food, we dug out the balloons
and had a laugh with
them. The two sides blended pretty well :-) It was
great for folk to
meet Graham Benson, and understand his "other
side" in that he is an
artist, and sculptor, as well as a terrific performer.
His appreciation
of GOOD, CREATIVE face painting is what pushed this
idea forward.
Brilliant bloke. It was very, very late, certainly
after 3am, when I
left the hall. My kids were welcomed completely, and
having a great
time. Beth wailed when she had to go. We had use of
a kitchen piled high
with coffee, biscuits, tea, fruit,all stuff folk had
brought and piled
in there. The guys were still going when we left.
Carole braved the
hall, and I must admit I was wondering why I had bothered
to book a
place to sleep...
Sat am
I had breakfast with Lou and Adam at the B and B which
was lovely. Drove
on over to the hall to find where the painters were.Delighted
to
discover we had the cosiest one, with the trade stand,
so we could pore
over the paint on Tactical Magics HUGE stand, and
dream over the things
on Beards. Lorry did a brilliant talk/brainstorming
session on Face
Painting for the Corporate Market. It really made
us think, about what
we did, the value of what we did, and what a difference
doing a good job
makes. Ideas for marketing and business contact were
flowing like the
tea and coffee from the kitchen. Fiona Dalgliesh,
Andrea, Rita and
Caroline Kelly braved the cold to join us. It was
well worth it. I
bought piles of stuff from the stand too. I hope Tactical
Magic were
aware of just how much genuine affection and respect
we have for them in
Scotland. Where there are no decent paint shops their
consistantly good
service, total reliability, is very important to us.
It was great to
hear from Lorry as her business skills are second
to none, and their are
my favourite agency to work for. Some of the jugglers
were listening to
to her talk, it was as relevant to their business
as ours.
Sat pm
Jugglers still at it in the main hall, things going
on in their other
two halls, plans for the evening in motion...Rick
was getting started on
painting up Zoe for the show, some painters headed
off the shopping
centre, very close. Typical Glasgow community shopping
centre. A chance
to paint up some extremely enthusiastic children,
the smiles were
terrific, and grab some lunch. I think Scottish work
is bolder and
funkier than English, interested to see what the folk
from the South
felt... A lot of fun. I wandered back to the bodypainting
before the
shopping centre finished to see how it was going with
Zoe, and to make a
start on Rick. Rick was taking pix of his UV master
piece. It was very
very good. Zoe was to dance, so it had to be bold,
impact stuff. He had
chosen batik type tropical fish. Fitted with the paint
colours so well.
So good. But would it work? On stage?With the lights
etc? Would Zoe
seize with nerves??? I started painting Rick to discover
that the paint
supplied to me by those whose name I dare not speak
on the list would
not work, the order was well mucked up, and to finish
it the paint just
clogged. I tried, prob too long, till I gave up and
stared sponging on a
15ml Grimas grass green, by this point convinced the
Rick should just go
have a shower, and I should give up, but I kept going
:-) In under 2
hours I completed a full body Green Man, with Carole
helping shade the
legs, and I was pleased, done on time, complete and
just what I wanted
as a "character" for the show. Rick was
a total sport in posing for
photos, and wandering about at the hall before the
show.
The Show
Graham showed off all the skills I really like him
for in pulling this
together, from sewing the Scottish Flag background
himself, to rigging
up the lights, and coping when the lighting engineer
decided to scarper
off to the pub... He was the compere, and he did it
well, very funny,
very skillful, totally relaxed with the kids joining
in. One of the
funniest moments was when Adam(3) shouted out "
Look Mummy, it's a funny
man!" to us all sitting there it was like the
big smile in the mirror we
get, and the jugglers loved it, HUGE round of applause
for him. A
child's comment was totally appreciated and echoed
round the hall. The
show... well... I just could never explain that one,
I HAVE NEVER SEEN
SUCH SKILL, such audience participation. Such showmanship.
I would have
paid a fortune to see that. The world record holder
for the highest
diablo toss did his bit, so good, so full of personality,
(Lou was to
paint him him later). Zoe's dance was so good,so proud
of her, in total
darkness, under UV, it was GOOD!! It really worked.
When Michael
Jackson's Scream stopped, the cheering started. Jamie
with his devil
sticks, a totally dynamic street performer if ever
I saw one, want him
to travel to every youth club.... , the contact juggler
with his
crystal ball was mesmorising, beautiful to watch,
gravity defying stuff.
Charles with his glowing balls.... I knew he was nervous
about this act,
spoken to him Wednesday, but in total darkness to
see these inner
glowing balls doing thier bit, I loved it. So smooth,
professional,
consumate performer. Bridget with her UV poi, stunning
under the lights,
and UV juggling. So cool and funky. The show act was
two very
professional blokes who do an act with small bouncy
balls, the speed the
work at, the positions they took while doing it....
WOW! I was at this
point helping Carole cook the haggis supper. Got that
running, then took
Rick and Zoe home to shower and get ready for the
Ceildah. The UV
lighting for the show was mine, 2 5ft tubes and a
UV cannon, and it had
been brill for me to see it raod tested like this.
It gaveme a lot of
confidence in planning a UV body/dance for future.
Ceilidh
After the show, Philip, Tamsyn(4) and Katie(13) arrived
as I ran out the
door with the folk to be showered. Haggis cooking
away. I returned to
find the band playing away, and they were good! It
had been a
"discussable" expense to go for this band,
and they were worth it.
Everyone discussing it had felt that live music was
the only choice for
the event. Real entertainment, a disco would have
lost the mood I think.
Painters returned after nipping out for a quick chinese
meal, and paints
were dug out again, some nice painted faces graced
the ceildah and added
to the feel I thought. I am going to nab more jugglers
next year....
Great night, I enjoyed the haggis supper, eaten with
pizza too.... Lots
of mad dancing. After the dance was over we watched
more jugglers,
chatted, drunk wine and enjoyed the company. Headed
back at 5.30.
Sunday
Slowly we woke and roused ourselves, turned up at
the painting hall for
Lou's Demo clutching bacon, cheese, rolls, tomato
sauce, juice and used
the kitchen facilities to pig out :-))) The kitchen's
were so useful and
I know saved me a fortune!
Lou's Demo
Lou is a highly creative face painter, loves to do
individual creations
for children, brush skills terrific! So she was my
first choice for a
demo. The night before Graham and Lou had asked for
a volunteer from the
jugglers to be a model... she got no fresh faced youth,
she got the
bearded jugglers with loads of laughter lines. She
rose to the challenge
beautifully. He had said he liked all colours, and
he wanted something
for HIM! That was what he got. A beautiful winged
juggler against a
background of rainbow colours. His beard was carefully
coloured with
bronze. It looked amazing.... Zoe was painted with
an enchanted
landscape that had us wanting to run off and practice
with our fan
brushes. Beth had a total crowd pleaser of a flower
face, lovely and
delicate. Great demo. (One of the highlights was Adam
(her son age 3)
climbing the ladder, skipping the queue, demanding
that his mummy
painted him a Santa, very cute).
Bodywork
Lou and Rick had a go at a bit more bodypainting on
Rick's back.
Airbrushes were out and folk had a chance to handle
and experiment with
them. I gave a great demo on how to clean airbrushes
of green paint
:-)))) Carole had out the aquacolour and stencils,
and folk had a lot of
the mysteries of airbrushing vanish. More last minute
shopping :-))
There were still classes in juggling, tightrope etc
going on (once the
jugglers woke up LOL) and the games were started in
the main hall. The
world record for haggis juggling was set, by Charles
and 5 haggis'.
Everyone seemed to enjoy these, I had things to talk
to Kate from
Tactical Magic about some things, and have a look
at this wonderful CD
rom they have just brought out. It allows you to paint
a "virtual face"
and print out the results, great fun. Just £13
too. Books were around
the hall, lots of coffee drinking and peering at Mamaclown's
magazine
and the Creative Face Painting book.
Waaay tooooo soon it was time to go home. Packing
up time. A chance to
catch Graham and both confirm the total 100% positive
feedback. Next
year though we are dropping the "Glasgow"
and replacing it with
Scotland" figure we earned that. Know we can
do it even bigger and
better next year.
We all learned a new phrase over the weekend "Wheet-weee-oh!"
which was
what one of the girls said about Graham in his kilt,
and I reckon
applied to the weekend :-))) Zoe sat in the back of
the car, still with
Lou's beautiful painting on, with big tears rolling
down her cheeks in
silence, just did not want to leave. Big blue painty
tears... :-((
Caspar can now juggle with his new glow in the dark
juggling balls, Beth
can do tricks with a diablo, (shown by the word record
holder with such
gentleness and caring) Tamsyn was genuinely applauded
for being able to
walk round the room with a spinning plate on a stick.
She was so
desperate to join in with something... The children
were so welcomed it
was great, they were loved for showing their appreciation,
after all,
what are a bunch of entertainers without a bunch of
children??
The whole weekend, from all sides and angles, jugglers,
painters,
traders, was one of cooperation and encouragement.
Every person left
there having learnt something new and feeling even
better about what
they do for a living. The enthusiasm for entertainment
was
astounding...
So yes, there are pictures to come, and we will show
them off with pride
:-)))
Scottish Juggling Conventions
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