Hello there... I am looking to change the warm up trick in my show and am leaning toward a magic painting routine. Years ago I had the John Breeds Visible Magic Painting routine and loved it, got really good reactions.

Now I hear that this has been exposed (!). Yet in the last three birthday parties I have been to two of the kids actually owned the coloring book,

So my question... if the coloring book is out ( and I do believe that it is) and the Magic Painting has been exposed ( this I am not sure about)... what magic painting version would you recommend? ( one's I have considered are Potty Paiting, Instant Art, various versions of Visible Magic Painting)

thanks

tom

I keep mentioning the solution to the Coloring Book exposure, but for some, it's too much like work to go out and get some real coloring books from a children's book store (or the Dollar Store) and make your own set following Jim Gerrish's instructions on his Kid Magic section of my site. I guarantee no one has see it before... done that way.

The same thing is true of Instant Art. In The Wizards' Journal #9 in "Portrait of Grandma", you'll find TWO ways to make it yourself, if that's not too much like work.

But if neither of those solutions makes you happy, you can still use the painting theme in a variety of ways. You can have a black and white lineart drawing on a silk handkerchief that you transform to a full color drawing on the handkerchief. You can make a chalk-talk drawing on a pad of paper with a black crayon or charcoal pencil that suddenly fills in with colors after the kids say the appropriate spells. Wiz Kid Qua-Fiki has a variation of Wild Card included within his Go Fish Card Tricks in which black and white line drawings of fish turn into fish of many colors.

The bottom line is, if you make it yourself, you'll have an original effect no kid has, no other kid show performer does, which has never been exposed, and which probably costs less than $10 to make.

I've still got John Breeds Visible Magic Painting and a variety of colouring books ... but I'm now using Practical Magic's New Style Magic Painting. It comes with six different pictures which I select after talking to the parents. £75 and 100 coloured pics for another £10.

Yes, the secrets for the colouring book are out - I got a different one from Heathrow Airport's gift shop!! But the kids still like to see it as part of a routine that involves them in dressing up / waving wands etc (see David Ginn's books.)

VMP was exposed ages ago when kellogs pinched the idea to make give-aways. That was about 25 years ago. I don't know of any recent exposure.

My father told me long ago. and before that my grandfather told me too, that almost everything magical had been exposed over the last 100+ years. And if not deliberately exposed - revealed - then overexposed. Very true of children's entertainers. There was a good reason.

Magic specially made for children only appeared on the market post 1945. It's only 65 years ago. Prior to that it was down to the very few individual performers who made their own and worked exclusively for the very rich. They were very expensive. Sorry about all the 'verys' but that's how it was.

Those entertainers earned for ONE show TWICE as much as the average well paid office worker earned in a WEEK. Only the very rich afforded them.

They had to make their own props because apart from standard props converted to children's use, you couldn't buy special children's effects. They didn't exist because there wasn't sufficient market for them. They made their own Magic Painting Books from the paint books sold in Woolworth's.

As my grandfather told me, and my father and so many old pros in all sorts of areas of the business, what matters is not your props, nor what you do - it's the way that you do it.

So stop worrying. If you are a good entertainer no one will be even thinking about how you do any effect. The audience will be enjoying themselves far too much.

If you are not such a good entertainer, then do something about it for your audience won't be entertained no matter how different or impossible your magic. They want to be entertained and a good entertainer can capture and hold an audience even with effects which have been exposed and explained on national television.

There now. It only remains to suggest you read Open Sesame and to understand what the authors were saying right back when all this began in 1946. Because the classics of magic - Baking a Cake, Magic painting and the like hold an unending fascination for children.

Done well and entertainingly, they are as effective today as they were when they were first used - probably well over 100 years ago.

There is actually a version of the Magic Colouring book in "The Discoverie of Witchcraft" (Reginald Scot 1584).

My jaw dropped when I came across that!

I am sorry, I can't give you any insight on any of the visible painting effects on the market. I can tell you that I do have tremendous success with the Magic Coloring Book. I not only use it for my children's shows, but for teen and adult shows as well.

I at one time felt that it was overdone by magicans and that it was "exposed" so I stopped using for years. A couple of years back I started using it again.

I am challenged with the fact that so many people know about the effect and it forces me to use it in different ways.

Just my opinion...sorry I can't be of more help.
Wolly

Sorry, I never mentioned what I have used for a long time. A magic painting book. One with three flicks, blank, outlined and coloured. You didn't get blank pages when you had to make them yourself.

It helps to have other related props to put with it. I use a paint can and every time the brush is dipped in, it comes out a different colour. Amuses everyone, including the assistant doing the painting. Every little helps!

Painting routines are an ideal early participation effect. Not taxing on your first assistant who at that point is a guinea pig of course. Everyone watches to see how they get on. Important to provide reassurance to everyone including the birthday child, who will usually be under pressure, self-afflicted or otherwise.

My favourite of all is the Supreme New and Improved Instant Art. Unlike framed pictures this is simple and lightweight. And highly visible. A card holder/folder with almost all the front cut out. You take the plain picture out, you can flap it about, even let a child hold it if you want to gain some extra time use, and you see it go back inside. It remains in sight at all times and when it is finally removed, the picture is coloured. And it is all genuine. Lovely, pack flat effect. Any age, either sex and angle proof. I've done it surrounded many a time.

The original had a second folder which was not good. Bearing a picture of an artist's palette the blobs of coloured paint were cut outs with the colour on a heavy, metal plate inside which swung across hiding the colours. It made a noise.

For the new improved version which came out in the late 60s the palette folder was replaced with a rainbow silk scarf which turned inside out becoming black. So fast you don't see it.

You see why it's so useful, lightweight and big and visible - and flat too! My original looked tired after thirty years of constant work and I now use my spare. I have another, hardly used which I bought secondhand.

Granted, the picture is always the same - a typical looking UK house - but that only matters if you are constantly seeing the same people over and again. In reality, it won't affect a good presentation.

A note to remember. The folder with the cutout front is held landscape because that way it looks best. The picture is portrait because that's how the picture looks best and as you remove the card, back out, the turn action brings the picture upright to portrait. Someone of late has copied this effect and perhaps with the intention of 'improving' it, made the picture landscape to match the folder.

They should have questioned why Edwin never changed it himself in all the years he made it.

It may defy apparent logic but the reaction is greater and the payoff more effective with the original portrait style. It makes the picture look bigger, too. Silly, these tiny details, aren't they?

The best, by far, is the Ian Adair Magic Painting routine by Practical Magic. That one has the magic occurring in the hands of a volunteer after a bunch of byplay. All the others are much less fun and much less magical. Look that one up and you won't be sorry. Remember, it's the routine that makes the trick. Practical Magic's version is the only one that gives you a good deal to work with . . .

This is the one I'm talking about:

http://www.practical-magic.com/index.php......temid=32

It avoids all the hackneyed cliches about pulling colors off the kids' clothes and throwing them invisibly, etc. You don't need magic crayons, etc. It engages kids and makes the painting into a competition between you and the kid and the kid wins and they love it.

Thanks for all the words of advice folks.

Does anyone know if Practical Magic have a US importer? Seriously contemplating the new style magic painting.

Once again, thank you.

tom

Dazzling magic

Thanks!

I'm sure it will be a boon if you order from Practical Magic in the UK, and pay the shipping and customs charges. This is what I do for most of the props I buy - as US manufacturers have really taken the lead in prop production.
Although I like the concept of Magic Painting, and include the "Great Painting Competiton", "Colouring Book", and many other painting routines in my shows, I do feel that the principle is rather hackneyed these days, and prefer to use more exciting routines.
I have Adair's Painting Competition on video on my website - so I almost never use the routine any more; but it's a solid routine, with great comedy and logic.
As has been mentioned, it's not really the particular magic painting effect that matters, but how you present it.
Potty

There is a 4 way that is good .
Fantasma has one called My Favorite Things. It has a different cover so the kids don't suspect it.
It's the Haines and Royal ones the kids KNOW good.
Also SPS's Sketch-o-matic,Critter Knitter or What's My Job are good.
Not really a coloring book effect but a Mental one or Guess for a kids show.
If you can't find them look me up. I have plenty.

The colouring book overexposed? I hear this time and time again. I have developed an original routine and in it the focus is not on the trick or even the Magic but the kids and interaction. This I believe is most important as with any Magic. It is not the prop but the skill of the presenter! Cheers!

Jim Kleefeld makes coloring books without the garish paint jobs most of them have. He actually colors the pages by hand and then reproduces them. There are also several different ones - I have a Halloween one, Christmas one, and a pirate book. They are more expensive, but definitely worth the money. The kids absolutely love my interactive routine, based on a routine by Silly Billy.

Made a couple color books from the store by coloring and cutting (the gimmick) the pages myself.

I think you can get more byplay with kids if you rig a "spirit slate" type of reveal and get coloring sheets that fit the theme of your show. That way, the kid volunteer can color or paint it "right," while you, the magish, get it wrong. Kids love "pulling one over on adults" it is subversive and empowering to them. This trick allows that (think of a kid equivalent of Picto-Transpo by Gene Anderson). The Practical Magic version was like this but I think it is no longer available.
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Jim Kleefield offers coloring sheets and instructions for this kind of effect in his fairy tale kid show thumb drive, which is an amazing resource.