If you’ve ever been curious about the art of bodypainting and what goes into it, this interview with Trina Merry, an accomplished New York City artist, will answer some of your questions.
What is technically the most challenging aspect of bodypainting?
I mean when I'm doing my camouflage body paintings outside. Definitely time is the hardest aspect of what I have to deal with as well as things like changing light, environmental factors like weather or other people. Technically the hardest aspect about body painting is that you're painting on a person and that person can be fidgety, they can be ticklish, they can need to use the bathroom, they can sweat, they could have not eaten or drank too much alcohol the night before and you have to sort of babysit them. When you just want to paint. So I think working in community is.. can be challenging sometimes but it's so richly rewarding and I love that every piece of artwork that we make has a heartbeat and a twinkle in the eye. So I think that the technical difficulties that we sometimes have to encounter in a human being is 100% worth it.
How long does it take you to bodypaint?
It takes me anywhere between one and three hours to do the camouflage style body painting. So really fast at those and then human sculptures can take anywhere from two hours to 18 hours. The longest body painting I'd ever did was the yellow human sport bike and that took me about 18 hours to accomplish. So it really varies wildly.
What’s the best kind of bodypaint for sensitive skin?
So for sensitive skin I definitely recommend the hypoallergenic water-based body paint and then I recommend testing for any allergies. So you could just take the inside of your wrist have your painter do some different paint tests on you and within 15 minutes usually you'll know. I definitely recommend that you stay away from any metallic paints like any metallic powders or anything like that because I find that people even with regular skin are breaking out in rashes with it. So stick to hypoallergenic water-based body paints and you should be okay but again do a test just to make sure. Well that's all the questions we got this week. Do you have a question about body paint that you would like answered? Leave it below in the comments and maybe I'll choose your question next week. Thank you so much for your curiosity and if there's a way that I can help you please let me know.