Clown costume: how to paint a clown face

Believe it or not, clown face designs are subject to strict patenting laws.  The face painting video tutorial below shows you how to use four basics to create your own original design.

What you need:

• Basic moisturiser
• Face paints (make sure you have red, blue, yellow, black and white)
• A number of small makeup sponges
• 1 x fine paint brush
• A headband to pin back hair while makeup is being applied

Optional:

• A ping pong ball and red nail varnish to make a nose or a red clown's nose bought from party shop.

Number of players:

Activity:

Before you start:

Clean and moisturise your child's face. The use of moisturising cream first will help when you need to remove the makeup afterwards.

Here are the four basic stages of a clown's face:

1. Foundation

Cover the face in a white foundation. Leave a circle around the eyes and about half an inch around the mouth. The edges should be clean, almost as if the foundation has been painted on.

2. The mouth

Using a fine paintbrush, draw a black or brown line around the outside area of the mouth at the edge of the foundation line. Then fill in the mouth area with red face paint.

3. The eyes

Get your child to close his eyes. Define the section around the eyes where the foundation ends. Fill in the eye shape with colour. Yellow, pink or orange are good colours for this. Using your fine paintbrush and black facepaint, draw upper and lower lashes.

Above the clown's eyes, draw eyebrows – a stylised triangle shape is standard. One representing each eyebrow, with the pointy bit at the top.

4. The nose

Either colour the tip of the nose red or black or use a ping-pong ball – paint it with red nail varnish then cut a small 2cm split into it. Bend the split in so that it creates a nook for your child's nose. You should be able to wedge it onto your child's nose like that. Alternatively you can use a SIDS red nose day nose, or buy a cheap one from a party shop.