c2002 Painting and photo by Mark Greenawalt

Happy 4th of July, 2002!  Playtime Magazine had been considering using bodypainting for an upcoming cover.  When managing editor David Salcido called me and mentioned that they needed an idea for their July issue, I immediately thought that an Uncle Sam bodypainting would be cool.  He liked the idea and so we set out to assemble a team to make it a reality.

I indicated that I wanted to work with Don Crossland as the photographer for the session based on his expertise and the repoire that we have developed on previous projects.  Next up was finding the perfect model.  Stephanie was suggested by Jim Keeler, co-publisher and founder of the magazine.  She had previously worked with Playtime in their July 2001 issue and she is absolutely gorgeous.  I was so glad that she was interested in working with us on this project.  Rounding out the team was make-up artist Morgan Murry who has helped countless Playtime models go from beautiful to stunning.

The session took place on an extremely hot day in early June at Don's house/studio.  The hair, make-up, and bodypainting took approximately 4 hours to complete (including a brief pizza break).  Stephanie had to stand throughout this whole process and she was super patient and interesting to talk to.  It turns out that she is an artist also.  At the completion of the painting I knew she had to be getting tired, but when she was placed in front of the camera, she turned it on and had a great photosession. 

I used Totally Tattoo paints for this project which are available from Badger Airbrush.  It took Stephanie about 45 minutes to wash the paint off.  Most of the painting was airbrushed on using the Spectrum 2000 available from Silent Aire and an Iwata BC airbrush.

Please visit www.playtime.com to find out more about Playtime Magazine.  Below are a few additional images from the project.

In July of 2004 Playtime used this bodypainting image once again for a full page advertisement in the magazine.  Below is a scan of the ad and a copy of the original Uncle Sam "I WANT YOU" Army recruiting poster painted by James Montgomery Flagg in 1916.  When we did the bodypainting session, care was taken to reproduce the outfit as best as possible and it was interesting to note how many people thought that we forgot to paint red and white stripes on the hat.  As you can see, these stripes weren't in the original painting by Flagg, but the folks at Playtime decided that the public needed to see them and added the red stripes to the picture.

BOOKS ON BODY PAINTING

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This page has been designed and maintained by FUTURE-CLASS X PUBLISHING.
Unless noted otherwise, Photography and Artwork by Mark Greenawalt c2002

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