Over the last few years I have been privileged enough to work alongside some amazing people - make-up artists, photographers, costumiers, music producers, event companies....every collaboration brings with it new friends & sources of inspiration and it seems only fitting that I share these amazing people with you. With this in mind I have been working to give the Links page a make-over so I can give these wonderful folk some of the praise and admiration they deserve and you can see for yourselves just how awesome they are.

First up is the wonderful Grace McComisky - an amazingly creative & passionate freelance makeup artist & undoubtedly my favourite person in the world to collaborate with, Grace is highly skilled in all areas of the art. From stunning beauty make-ups & imaginative prosthetics to intricately hand knotted wigs & custom made props this girl can make just about anything with her hands & always with beautiful results! As well freelancing she runs her own company - the wonderful Happy Slap Boutique - &  has worked on a large variety of productions including Tim Burton's Dark Shadows & the upcoming World War Z. Grace is always excited about new collaborations no matter how big or small so don't be shy about getting in touch! Visit her website to learn more and have a sneaky peek at her portfolio, then check out the Links Page to check out more amazing people!

My favourite collaboration of the summer took place on the Sunday of Boomtown festival at Happy Slap Boutique. I teamed up with makeup artist Grace McComisky & visual artist Joe Furlonger who specialises in surreal cartoons & twisted illustration. Together we created a piece of live art/performance that focused around themes of body & pollution intermingled with natural elements - mirroring the festival environment. There's a very raw feeling to Boomtown that teeters on chaos & a post apocalyptic revelry swathed in a plethora of amazing artistic installations, sets & costumes - directly contrasting the natural beauty of the festival site with its green hills and lush patches of forest.
During the performance we bounced off each other to entwine elements of each others designs into our own - thus tying together the three artworks & resulting in some very stunning images taken by photographer Chris Little.
Thank you so much to everyone involved, especially our wonderful models Lizzie West & Delia Mur; it's always a pleasure working with you girls & there's nothing quite like seeing you bring our artwork to life.
For more photos of the collaboration please visit the Body Art Gallery.

I absolutely love painting on people with no/very little hair on their heads- there's so much space to play with! This summer at Kendall Calling and Boomtown with Happy Slap Boutique I had a couple of chances to let loose and fully decorate a couple of craniums. James, my model for the the black white and red piece, told me to do whatever I wanted so I improvised and opted to stick to a simple, striking colour scheme and try to produce something fun, bold and freaky. The brain was painted on my friend Scott Salt by request but looked a bit stranded and lonely perched up there by itself so I decided to extend the design down onto the face. Scott is an amazing photographer and was taking photos of Boomtown festival, so with this in mind I left the right side of his face paint free so it wouldn't interfere with his work. For more photos take a visit to the Makeup Gallery...

The Sunday of Kendall Calling festival this year saw a live body art collaboration with Grace McComisky at the glorious Happy Slap Boutique. The festivals fancy dress theme was Fairy Tales & Comic Books so after some careful deliberation we decided to draw inspiration from Lewis Carroll's much loved book & each produce a body painting that followed an Alice In Wonderland Theme. In preparation we each dressed a wig - mine to a Queen of Hearts theme and Grace's a White Rabbit. I built a cage to structure the hair around which also allowed a hiding place for the battery pack of some small heart-shaped fairy lights which I wove into the hair. The Queens crown is made from a collage of playing cards and gold paint which I designed to be sewn into the wig so as not to fall out of place during performance. To tie our two paintings together we both drew from the same colour palette of black, white, red & gold - using them to create individual pieces of work in our own particular styles. I was painting on the wonderful Lizzie West who I can't thank enough for her patience and incredible discipline that day - it was not a warm one.... 
That night Lizze & Delia performed a spectacular burlesque reveal of the paintings on the Happy Slap Stage, to the booming beats of Mike Fear of Slamboree's DJ set. Visit the Body Art Gallery for more photos & a video of their performance.

This summer saw the first of my close friends tying the knot as my beautiful & amazing friend Olivia became Mrs. Burchell at a sweet, intimate ceremony at Lubstock Festival in Leicestershire. Definitely not the conventional type, Olivia decided to swap the traditional 'white wedding' for one swathed in golds and purples with a flock of fairy bridesmaids, & my god did she look stunning! I wanted to make her something special to wear on her big day so set to work making her a pair of wings of her own. I used the frame of an old pair of fancy dress wings & covered then in some lovely creamy gold embroidered fabric by Laura Ashley. I then sewed on pieces of crocheted  doilies, flowers and trimming which were then embellished with gold & purple beads & a numerous amount of individually sewn on sequins. As a finishing touch I attached a number of creamy coloured leaf skeletons and a small bouquet of white and purple paper flowers which I'd lightly spayed with a hint of gold. Visit the Arts & Crafts Gallery for more photos.

Pay a visit to the Makeup Gallery to see some new photos from this summer's fun & games with Happy Slap Boutique!

This summer I reunited with the amazing Grace McComisky and her spectacular company Happy Slap Boutique to bring magic, makeup & mayhem to England's festivals. For those of you who don't yet know Happy Slap is an amazing collective of makeup artists, djs, circus performers & actors who bring the party with them where ever they go! Fusing body art and prosthetics with music & performance it truly is the best place to be - and undoubtedly the most brilliant place to work. There is such huge opportunity for creativity at festivals & it's the perfect platform to experiment, try out new ideas and just go a little crazy on the make up front. Photos of my work from the summer, including two collaborative live body paints with Grace will be posted very very soon... While you wait why not pay the Boutique a visit at the Happy Slap website &/or their Facebook page to ensure you never miss an opportunity to join the party!

The E.U. was meant to be bringing in new legislation in 2013 that would totally ban the sale of cosmetics which had used animal testing. This was decided years ago and cosmetics companies were given ample warning to prepare themselves for the change over....however now that the date is drawing near officials are considering extending the deadline for anything up to ten years!!! Please visit No Cruel Cosmetics to sign the petition and let them know that the continued cruelty to animals in the name of beauty is totally unacceptable and unnecessary. Thank you!!!!

It's been rather a long time since my last post & what a lot has happened!! I've just spent an amazing summer back in the UK where all sorts of wonderful creativity took place in collaboration with the amazing Grace McComisky  & the one and only Happy Slap Boutique. There are some amazing pictures on the way so keep posted - I'll be uploading them over the next couple of weeks for your viewing pleasure as well as updating a few other areas of the site. I've also found some rather wonderful cruelty free brands to share with you all and will be looking at some issues which desperately need our attention. In the mean time why not check out some of the amazing photography by Chris Little & Scott Salt - our wonderful Happy Slap photographers. Click their names to visit their sites, enjoy!