I'm interested in transformations. Pushing the boundaries of who i am inside and out, and what i can be. In reality, I am a middle aged fat, bald guy. With face paint I can be anything from a pitbull to Donald Duck. I can transform into a different sex or species with the flick of a paintbrush, just about anything is possible if it can be imagined. I have skill with painting. I have painted pictures all my life. I attended art school, but i am a natural painter, that cannot be taught in a classroom, it is a part of you. Tricks and shortcuts are what you learn over time in painting, but no one can teach you how to make art. I have painted my face now almost 500 times and i never seem to run out of ideas, in fact i believe i have barely scratched the surface of what can be done. I never knew i had a mad dog inside of me until i painted this face. We are all much deeper than we appear to be :]

location: three oaks, Mi. tags: art artist james kuhn transformation pit

This video has a "step by step" in the middle of it so you can watch my transformation from beginning to end :] also click this link to listen to a recent interview on Ripley's Believe It Or Not Radio, "Ripley's Oddcast" you can hear me chat about what i do! http://webtalkradio.net/index.php/show-podcasts/126-ripley-radio-an-on-demand-oddcast-tim-and-ed-/4199-week-0942

This was a fun challenge :] try painting your right hand with your left hand! Freddt Krueger for halloween, i thought that would be a fun one for everyone. Check out this great interview with me in hip hop slam magazine! http://www.amoeba.com/blog/2009/10/jamoeblog/face-paint-illusionist-james-kuhn-on-halloween-art-god-.html

This is the first face that i had to use a tripod to shoot, i shot all the others by holding the camera out in front of me. I set everything up and had the neighbor lady come over and push the button for me. Thanks Karen!!! I made the wings out of a cardboard box in my garage, spray paint, and some sequins. I saw a picture of an Egyptian necklace with this vulture on it and knew it would make a great picture.

I was interviewed this week for the Ripley's Believe it or Not! radio show, "Ripley's Oddcast" for a 15 minute spot to air this week! And i just found out about being included in this gorgeous coffee table book! I will put a link to the radio interview as soon as it is archived :]

I keep coming up with new ideas! I think this apple head is really different, especially with the worm coming out of my nose :]

The Mummy, starring Boris Karloff. I love the old horror classics. I chose to do my Mummy in black and white, for both dramatic affect and to pay homage to the original. I was able to shape my face by using black makeup to erase the parts i wanted to disappear. The black makeup fades into the darkness leaving me with a much thinner face than i really have. This face is actually painted with black, white, yellow, and brown, face paint. It gives me a nice range of grays.

Another Topsy Turvey face painting! This time i took a plastic baby doll from the thrift shop, removed the head, cut down the neck on an angle, and taped the body to my forehead sticking straight up! I painted the baby head with the mouth over my eyes, and then flipped the photo upside down! Everything around the baby doll is painted black to achieve this effect. See my nose in the yellow hair?

Hi. Alot of exciting things are happening for me and my face paint art! I will be seen on t.v. auditioning for the celebrity judges on "America's got Talent" which starts June 27th i hear! Look for me doing my Face Paint In Motion!
Also, i just filmed a segment for Japanese T.V. for a show called "Unbelievable!" which airs June 4th. in Japan! Its a hugely popular variety show with this episode devoted to the Arts.
I will be flying to London in the very near future to be a guest on the "Richard and Judy" show!
My face art is currently featured on FOX websites around the country too! Lots of wonderful oppurtunities for me to show off what i do.
I will be starting a brand new 365 Transformations series soon!

I finally learned how to edit my own videos! Here is a fun one featuring two face paintings of belly dancers that dance as i wiggle my face! Enjoy.

Hello! Check out my flickr page to see more of my face art transformations!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hawhawjames/
Veggie Rabbit came about as i was thinking about "You are what you eat!" and i saw some plastic carrots in Hobby Lobby store...made me think of a bunnys long ears. Sort of a Bug's Bunny / carrot hybrid. for Easter. My inspiration comes from everywhere.

If you want to make art of any kind, you must be creative. If you want to go where no man has gone before, you must be radically inventive! Push, push, push! into your unknown. Stretch the borders of your comfort zone and allow yourself to be uncomfortable and vulnerable. In art, fear is your friend - It is your geiger counter. If you are not a little bit afraid, then you might as well stop wasting paper and paint! Fearlessness in the face of fear separates the men from the boys, the hobbyist'ss from the true innovators. True art is original and thought provoking, it can bring you to tears or make you laugh, and it can disturb you, but what disturbed you yesterday quickly becomes commonplace and old hat. You must continually move forward into the new.

location: Three Oaks, Mi. mood: creative music: Milk tags: creativity art innovation artist artists

Boredom is not a choice, You are bored because you did NOT choose! Most of us remain bored because we have become lazy and have forgotten how much fun it is to actually accomplish something! I believe that everyone has creative thoughts and ideas all day long, they just don't grab ahold of them and hang on. We let our visions slip away from us without ever making them become real. Naturally, some people are more creative than others, I have always been perhaps a bit too creative for my own good! Your brain is a muscle. All muscles must be exercised or they become weak and soft. This 365 project started out as a way to avoid house cleaning, but it has become for me a creative calisthenics class! I was sure that i would run out of ideas after 100 or so, but it seems the more i do, the more ideas come to mind! One idea feeds the next one. I really do not see EVER running out of ideas, as this art form seems unlimited. I love the way this Skeleton face paint "puppet" turned out! I call him a puppet, because i thought about how i could make him move. Some of my face paintings are not meant to move, i like them as still images, but others are even better in motion, and this is one of them. I made his cardboard arms thin and bent them at his elbows so they might be more expressive as i moved my face and head. I used only a small piece of tape to attach the arms to my cheeks so they might move freely. I will post the video soon!

location: Three Oaks, Mi. mood: content music: Patti Labelle tags: face paint painting facepaint facepainti

I like to explore new directions with my body art. I try and go into new territory and see what i can make happen there. I pose myself questions and then set myself to figuring them out. I doodle on whatever i can reach at the time so i can remember later when i need an idea. This "flipped" idea came to me while i was driving my bus. [ i transport mentally challenged adults and seniors to medical and dental apts.] I often get good ideas while driving! I think maybe it is because part of my brain is busy with the driving, it sorta goes on auto pilot when i'm doing mundane activities, and i think maybe that sets the creative part of my brian free to come out and play. Plus, im looking in a mirror all day [rearview mirror!] Sometimes a face idea comes to me complete, other times its just a concept that needs drawing out. A wonderful thing about photography is that i can flip the finished image any way i choose. This face worked much better upside down. Many of my faces work in a controlled environment only, with the black background and some artistic cropping.

location: Three Oaks, Mi. mood: awake tags: face paint painting facepaint facepainti

I have always painted. I went to Art school at the Art Institute of Chicago, and got my B.F.A. in painting and drawing. Painting is not new to me, but FACE painting is something i had never really looked at. I had used makeup for halloween and i had been involved in theatre and performance art, but the makeup was always the beginning of the project and not the end! Makeup was just one of many elements that made up a costume. I had never thought of makeup as paint. I had never picked it up to make art with. Makeup is so impermanant! I wash it off so quickly after putting it on so slowly! I cant sell a painting that is painted on my own flesh! I am not a trained photographer!
I had gone to an art festival in Nevada called BurningMan. That experience really changed the way i think about art and my concept of what art is, and its purpose. At this festival an entire city is created by artists in the course of a week. At the end of the event most of the art is burned! People worked so hard for the experience of giving and receiving a gift of art, and then it was gone. The art was not for selling, it was for gifting. Art was created for the pure joy of the experience! There was a rule that NO Spectators were invited. Everyone there was expected to put something into the pot. Also the short time that you had made for quick decisions and lots of innovation in your art making. There was no time for perfectionism in your art! Alot of what usually would be covered up or hidden was left exposed. The rawness that resulted was quite beautiful to me. The imperfections became part of the art and gave it a power and immediacy that i had never even thought of before. The process and materials became part of the art.
In my face painting art i use big sloppy brush strokes sometimes. My concearn is not to make a neat and perfect painting. As long as the idea that i am trying to bring into existence comes through i am happy. I could work on my faces for hours and hours, but i dont have that need, or the time. I have to make a face every day! I work a full day at my "real" job, [ paying job :] ] and then have to get a face done before i can go to bed. On the weekends i can relish the painting and lazily get my face done, but often it is a race with the clock before bed.
I like this face paint portrait of Dame Edna alot. I love the crazed happy face Dame Edna is making in contrast with the sort of scary face i have to make to get my eye where it needed to be! Just try getting your eyeball to get that far over to the right! I also had to paint part of her "Face Furniture' her glasses, onto my ear.
I must contort my face to make the painting move into the shape i want it to be. I can suck in my cheeks or puff them out, scrunch it up or down, purse my lips... all the facial movement in the mirror made me want to make video of the art! My face paint videos are very fun to watch, especially for me! I get to look at myself from a completely new angle.

location: Three Oaks, Mi. mood: artistic music: Patti Labelle tags: dame edna barry humphries face paint pai

In this face i have taped four add ons to my head. The ears and the two ends of the fish. I paint watercolor paper with the face paint makeup and attatch the pieces to my head with masking tape. Tape sticks better to a shaved area! Using the black background i am able to shape my head by painting out areas i dont want to be seen with black makeup. The bears head is shorter than mine so i got rid of the top of my head by blacking it out.

Lately, when i look in the mirror, i don't know the person looking back at me. Thats not me! Could i really look like that now? My eyes are the only part of me that has'nt changed. In my face transformations series, my face is covered with paint, but i can actually see myself again. My eyes are looking out at me through a psychological mask. I become my dream self, my fantasies come alive in flesh. I get to decide what i see! The group Kiss was my first taste of face paint. I was fascinated by them! I went to their concerts and made costumes for myself to wear. I made Gene Simmons dragon boots out of four 2x4's nailed together. I paper mache'd them and painted them to look like dragons. They weighed a ton! I could barely walk, but i loved wearing them, until i fell off of them one night and twisted my ankle. I had to crawl across a parking lot to reach a phone booth so i could call my mom to come get me! I call this face painting "Kiss Freak" but actually i felt more like a freak without the makeup than when i had my face painted. Some things never change. This is the only successful four face mask i have painted, usually the nostrils of the nose are way too obvious. In this case the nostrils are lost in the black makeup of the lower face. The eyes are painted on the flesh just below the nostrils. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcMbgXLKDC0 Each of the four faces move well with my facial movements, even the top face moves when i wiggle my forehead!

location: Three Oaks, Mi. mood: contemplative tags: kiss face paint painting puppet makeup a

This is what i call a "Topsy Turvey" face painting. It only works in a photo really because the photo must be flipped upsidedown to make sense! I enjoy the challenge of upsidedown painting. All my face art has to be painted backwards as i do them while i look in a mirror, but upsidedown and backwards is a real fun change of pace. You can see my nostrils in the blue turban. The banana is held in place in my mouth! I look up so the face can look down! I have a large forehead, being just about bald! So i get to use all that skin for painting. I have also done sideways painting! I try and find untapped directions for face painting, think outside of the box, as they say! Since i was never "IN" a box to begin with...everything i do is outside!

location: Three Oaks, Mi. tags: carmen miranda fruit banana face paint p

People today are so concearned with image and how people percieve them. the outside has become way more important than their insides, where beauty matters. I am interested in exploring different ways of looking and seeing myself. I want to get ugly! I want to try on different faces to perhaps discover my real true face. I also want to face my darkness and discover my light. I want to make fun of myself and be playful. I dont want to take myself too seriously. I am interested in the masks that people wear and my own masks. I have developed art techniques over the years as a painter and i can use these skills to unmask myself. It has been said that everything has been done already in art. I certainly dont believe that, but i do believe that the reason for art making has changed in our current popular culture. People want to "BE" an artist and all the celebrity and mystique that goes with the title, but they don't want to do the work and pay the dues that go along with the honor. Today art has become a product to sell. VanGogh never sold any paintings but made art because it was his passion. Face painting has reignited a passion in me to create art and discover all its mysteries. It is addictive and thrilling to see what i can pull out of this artform. The other thing that makes face art so interesting is that it is Kinetic. I was intrigued by the artist Yacov Agam in the 80's. His art was made to move and change. His idea was to let the viewer become part of the art making experience. Face paint changes the way i feel about myself and causes me to change the way i interact with other people. Most of the time my face painting is just for me and very private and personal, but at times i paint up for an event , and it is interesting how people react and relate to me. A human face is rarely still, and when paint is applied to the skin it begins to move. Face paint has made me more aware of my body and all its mystery. Being an average looking fellow, face art has opened doors for me into new acceptance. People that would never before speak to me are drawn into conversation. Suddenly i am best friends with people who would ordinarily not give me the time of day. Appearance is everything in todays society and i enjoy playing with my appearance and taking control of how i am presented to the world.

location: Three Oaks, Mi. tags: faux acne zits face paint painting body

I love creating illusions! I enjoy messing with peoples minds. I am not afraid to look ugly if i need to! Some of my best work happens when i am tired and try and think of something i can achieve quickly. This one here of the hot dog was very easy but is quite effective i think! I had to stuff my mouth with paper towels to get the "stuffed " shape to my face! But the rest is just simple painting! I do love to paint food! and i also love to paint over my mouth and move it or make it larger or scarier. Most of what i do is very low tech. I hold the camera in front of me and shoot! All the pictures are taken in my bathroom in front of my vanity mirror, i look at my reflection so i can position myself, and then take the shot. I would like to paint other people someday and really get complex using the entire figure, but for now i enjoy the solitude and quiet of this personal experience. I have an idea for another project to make the letters of the alphabet after i finish my 365 portraits! I cannot see ever running out of inspiration for this art form. Skin is so interesting! My rubber face can contort and move to enhance the artwork. I am my own biggest fan! I can't believe it when i look at the finished pictures. Is that really me?

tags: hot dog junk food faux fake face paint p