World bodypainting festival in Austria

SEEBODEN: The champions of the World Bodypainting Festival 2010 will be crowned this weekend in Seeboden, Austria – and the multi-coloured event is shaping up to be pretty amazing. Artists from 40 countries will be swishing their paintbrushes, sponges and airbrush pistols to create vibrant works of art on naked bodies. The colourful contest has been taking place at Lake Millstatt since 1998 and has become the world's largest bodypainting event, attracting thousands of visitors every year. They can experience the exquisite artworks up close and personal, as they are painted directly onto skin. Events at the festival's Bodypaint City begin at 10.30am every day and continue deep into the night. The aim of the game is painting and spraying to the heart’s content. A jury will select world champions in five different bodypainting categories, and there will also be an amateur competition. On Friday and Saturday artists will be working under the theme ‘sub cultures’, and on Sunday – which is the final day – the topic is ‘sources of power’. The presentation of the World Fluoro Awards will be particularly exciting, as it involves painting the body images using colours that glow in UV light.