When I was in college at Arizona State, I was introduced to the Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead tradition in a Chicana/o Studies class. One of our projects was to make little altars out of matchboxes. We also had to attend the Day of the Dead exhibit in the Anthropology musuem on campus. It was one of the best classes I ever took. It was a real introduction to a culture- my own culture- that I had never really been aware of before. I ended up adding on Chicana/o Studies as my double major because I enjoyed the class so much.
I credit this class as being the beginning of my love of all that is DOD. In a later year at ASU I participated in the same exhibit at the on-campus museum by entering a paper collage/mosaic piece. SO! I obviously was very much inspired :-) I especially love sugar skulls, and I have them decorating lots of spaces in my apartment. This year we attended the Day of the Dead event at the Hollywood Forever cemetery in LA and it was SO MUCH more than I expected it to be! We painted our faces - well half of our faces - for this event and for the HARD Day of the Dead event (long story short, the event was crazy disorganized, music was good but we are never going to a HARD event again.) I can't believe I'd never painted my face before! It was a lot of fun.
And now... our badass sugar skull faces!! :-D
Prepping for the evening
I used Tulip face paints and I LOVED them. I bought an assorted pack from Michael's as well as a larger sized white and black. They're super easy to use, and I used make-up sponges to apply them. They are activated by water so I just wet my sponges or brushes and swirled them around in the paint. They washed off really easily with water and just a touch of soap.
