By DEB GRUVER

Staff writer

Chris Hammond hopped off Megan Jones’s chair, his forehead green and scaly.

“My granddaughter told her a dragon,” Hammond said, chuckling.

Chris had his face painted by Jones for $5 Saturday at Chingawassa Days.

He sat in her tent at Central Park as rain fell and other customers pondered what to have Jones paint on their faces.

Jones runs Color Me Face Paint, a small business she started a couple years ago.

“I picked it up as a hobby on a Disney trip,” she said.

Having studied technical theater, face painting comes naturally to her, she said.

She signed up for Chingawassa Days because she noticed no other face painters on a vendor list.

Jones also does private parties. She charges $50 an hour for those and can paint 10 to 12 children’s faces in an hour. Children must be at least 3 years old.

She keeps up with her craft by practicing and looking at what other artists are doing.

Colorful palettes of hypoallergenic, water-activated face paints topped a table at her tent Saturday. A menu board gave people ideas for designs — cats, dogs, fairies, dinosaurs, baby Yoda, and more.

“I had a little kid today who wanted a crocodile Mario,” she said. “I thought that was pretty creative.”

Butterflies, unicorns, tigers, and cheetahs are popular among kids, she said.

Sonic the Hedgehog was 9-year-old Kenzie Klenda’s pick.

“It’s my favorite movie,” she said.

Her brother, Braxton, 7, chose a deer.

“He likes animals,” their grandmother, Michelle Glahn, said.

It takes three to five minutes to paint a face, Jones said. Chingawassa Days was her first festival.

When she books parties, she comes up with ideas that fit the party’s theme. She’ll be doing a bee theme for Marion City Library’s “Bee Kind” summer reading program.