Every now and then there are joyful opportunities to step into children’s worlds with them... this is what happens for me when I provide face painting.... yes whilst it’s a skilful area that takes a lot of hard work behind the scenes to seamlessly pull off, it’s not the serious end of the business, and that’s the whole point ... it’s fun, using gorgeous industry standard, quality face paints, it’s the immediacy, the colourful, fast paced, crafted designs, that offer their 'theatre of disguise’ results and adornment, and of course it’s fun because of the people, especially the little people, thats why I face paint. That and it ties in naturally to my fine arts portraiture interest and story, legacy and heritage interests. Not all art is ‘made' and whilst I am face painting I am achieving so much mind-based drawing, as I work. After packing up from face paint work I will generally need a public place refreshment to be with my sketchbook, pen and paint, to sit, draw and record marks from the intense and subtle learning I’ve just engaged in, from the quick sculptural studies of little faces having taken only mental notes. Not only portraiture but life drawing has been a constant across my career, which I lean into when I do full body art events such as the Fringe Festival work and charity fundraisers for health and cancer research. ​ And the privilege is mine. You see it's also about the thrilled anticipation each child approaches me with. It's about us both being able to play together, often quietly, whilst I craft a result that transforms them and brings them to another imaginal world. There are those special times when the child I am painting becomes so relaxed, they simply nod off, their tiny face resting heavily in my support hand under their chin whilst I paint them, parent nearby, amazed.  ​ Body art is something I started as an adult-teen with my hand printed trailing gold organza staircase soft sculpture, adorned entry in the Melbourne Fringe Festival, that walked the catwalk of a then famed 1990’s Melbourne night club after an intense day of painting. Face panting is something I started as a young teenage Aunty to a cast of many, and happily, I still invest in it today with loads of international learning and the careful maintenance of my own gorgeous, professional quality, materials. I love to provide face painting and body art at Festivals, Fairs, Markets, Family Christmas Celebration large corporate events. 35+ years on and I am still in love with it, this other perhaps more unlikely, form of paint. Yvonne Maclean