Hello, my name is Barbara Breitung owner/artist of Tappy’s Face Painting. I’m very excited to have been asked to teach my face and body art and head pieces at the FPBA Convention in St Louis this November. I’m looking forward meeting new people and seeing old friends. I have been face painting since Feb of 2009 for a profession, and even longer when i think back over the years. My passion for costumes and Halloween makeup got me really excited when asked to help out in the haunted house here in Onalaska WI for the Jaycees. I helped them out for several years with makeup, while my husband and I had our own room in the haunted house. When I moved to Wisconsin back in 1999, my husband was involved with a car club, I was there all 3 days of the show and hung around the airbrush guys booth, he really inspired me so much that year. So after a few years of watching him paint and being totally inspired each year I asked the club if I could face paint during the show, since i was there already as my husband did all the announcing they said yes. I started with small cheek art type stuff but was not really happy with that but continued as the kids loved it so much. In Feb of 2009 I lost my job which really was a turning point in my face painting, I started looking around on-line to buy supplies and watching you tube videos, and stumbled upon Anna Wilinski’s you tube channel, boy was I hooked. Then she mentioned she had an online store and I bought my first complete kit from Jest Paint, I have been buying from her ever since along with a few other places. While my first love for face painting is Halloween and scary stuff I find that I love doing arm designs. It’s a great alternative for those young children that might not like their faces painted but still want to have something. Also the teens most of the time don’t want stuff on their faces so I really push the pretty arm designs. A lot of my boy designs are on the arm as well. I have also had some of my work featured in SkinMarkz magazine and in The Colored Palette. This past year I have started a collaboration group called The Swirly Girlies we do weekly challenges then post them for everyone to see, we have also had our work published as a group in both magazines as well..I also have another collaboration group called The Painting Posse.