Stephanie Santiago Face Paints For All Ages

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Her Story

Stephanie Santiago specializes in painting face and body art for all ages. With her business Elegant Spirit Face and Body Art, Santiago offers her services for birthday parties, club nights and community events alike. She is known for her fantasy, psychedelia and horror-themed designs while equally at home painting a kid’s favorite animal or superhero. Elegant Spirit handles bookings via direct message on Instagram.

A Milwaukee native, Stephanie Santiago first dabbled in art from a young age. “My mom is an artist and I had an uncle who I would sit with and watch him paint,” she recalls. “I definitely picked some stuff up from him.”

As a young adult working at the Rock Sports Complex in Franklin, Santiago acted as a zombie for their “The Hills Have Eyes” haunted house. One day, the attraction needed an extra makeup artist. Santiago remembers, “Annaliese Thaney was the main artist, and she was kind enough to let me use her special effects makeup…just the feeling that I got after seeing the results that looked really good, I felt so passionate about it. I wanted to do this all the time.”

Using a Snazaroo kit gifted by her grandmother, Santiago took off with face painting from there and has been at it for over a decade now.

Creative Collective

Local festivals became Santiago’s primary face-painting environment at first. Hanging out at Nomad World Pub on Brady Street, DJ Moses asked her at one point if she wanted to work with Non-Pop, a local creative collective known for their multifaceted and interactive dance parties. “He said that I should paint bodies at their next event,” Santiago goes on. “It ended up being such a hit and I made really good money. It definitely got my name out there too.”

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She continued doing face painting and body art with Non-Pop at venues like Mad Planet, This Is It!, RWB Milwaukee and Mangos Cafe. “I’ve had to take a break from the scene lately, but I’ll definitely be down to go back when I’m ready to,” Santiago notes.

Santiago remembers the first kid’s birthday party she painted at, “It was for my best friend’s son. Back then it used to take me like 15-20 minutes to do one face but now it takes me probably five or so.”

Elegant Spirit Face and Body Art involves lots of glitter and gems, stencils, mini-sponges and a comfortable makeup chair. In terms of imagery she likes, Santiago is inspired by Aztec and tribal art and has incorporated designs of the sort. She has heavily worked space, rainbow and Halloween themes in as well. When painting for kids, Santiago finds herself keeping up with all the family-friendly pop culture trends.

Freehand Designs

She appreciates when people let her do freehand designs, mentioning, “It’s a lot of fun because I usually just go off of the person’s aura, or maybe they’re wearing a piece of clothing that has a design on it that I can incorporate.”

Comparing painting kids and adults, Santiago shares, “Kids always get so happy once they see their face in the mirror. Adults always want to reconnect with their inner child, and that’s something I noticed a lot at Non-Pop events; almost the same joy that I would normally get from kids I get from adults there too.”

Body art, which Santiago has done less frequently than face painting, involves her airbrush equipment. One notable example had been a full-body “Avatar” look she did for a friend. “It’s something I’ve been working on doing more of,” Santiago says.

Elegant Spirit Face and Body Art has lately focused on doing mostly private events and word-of-mouth opportunities. Stephanie Santiago continues to learn new paint techniques and practice looks on herself. She charges $150 for private parties including a $50 deposit. For larger events with more kids, rates may be subject to change.

Follow Stephanie Santiago on Instagram @elegantspiritfaceandbodyart to get in touch.