Sure, you can take some gorgeous long-exposure photos by carefully waving around a bright object, but there’s another approach to it: Light stencils.
https://gizmodo.com/46-people-painted-with-light-5590916
Basically all you’re doing is cutting out a plain stencil, taping some opaque cellophane to the back, and using something like a camera flash to illuminate things, but the results look awesome. You can check out the detailed instructions for the project over at Flickr. [Flickr via Make]