Down To A Fine Art Why People Are My Canvas

Auckland creative Jane Ellis (54) is an award-winning body artist and director of her company, rainbow rascals.

- Fleur Guthrie

Body painting is my happy place – there is nothing more I’d rather be doing. It ticks so many creative boxes for me. But I didn’t discover it until my early forties and I certainly was never aware of body art while growing up in Oxford, England.

The first people I ever painted were my eldest son Tom and his mate, who were teenagers at the time and heading off to watch a rugby game. They wanted me to paint rugby shirts on them, which I did, and Tom rang me to say they were getting a lot of attention.

I was always known as the ‘arty mum’ who used to paint sets for school productions, or sell homemade beanies at market stalls. I wanted my own business, so began with face painting, and body art became an extension of that.

It’s just amazing using the body as a canvas: it’s three dimensional, it has contours, it breathes and it talks to you while you’re painting it! Your model plays a huge part in bringing your artwork to life and I often use dancers because they’re confident with their body and know how to move.