As a woman in my 30's I was afraid I'd be surrounded by a bunch of girls just out of high school, thus making me feel old as hell. Luckily there was a nice mix of girls in their 20's and women in their late 30's early 40's I was kind of in the middle in my almost mid 30's. We were all so nervous, and quiet. Luckily, there's nothing like celebrity gossip to bring people together. That and our makeup teacher Frederick Sanders. He is a fantastic teacher and has really become a mentor to me and all the women in my class. He's also an awesome makeup artist!
On the first day of class, he said to us "show me what you got". We did our own faces in our own style to show him what we could do. He wanted to get a sense of our skills and our aesthetic. I'm sure we all thought we rocked it and walked out of class all cocky. Then the real work began.
It is a well known expression that you have to crawl before you walk. Most of the girls in class wanted to use crazy colors and really let lose and be creative. But you've got to learn the basics first. This began with Documentary makeup.
This is best described as they way you wish you looked when you woke up in the morning. It's a no makeup look. the crazy thing is, it takes a lot of makeup to look like you're not wearing any! Here's a pic of one of my first assignments.
One of the things I struggled with the most was eyebrows. Before school I never did anything with my eyebrows, and certainly didn't know what to do with other people's eyebrows. It took a while for me to understand how to shape and fill in and blend them.
As we moved on in the class we learned what's called Stage 1 makeup. Think a housewife on a TV sitcom. Not a glamor look by any means, but probably more made up than the average person. Still natural, but with a little something extra. Here's a pic of Stage 1
Eyebrows looking better, yes? I think so!
Then we did Stage 2 which is a red carpet look. We still weren't using much color as our makeup kits only had neutrals. The wildest color we had was black. We started gradually using color. Okay, here's a tip: Just because it's blush doesn't mean you only use it on your cheeks! Color is color and you can use almost any product anywhere on the face! It was really fun to experiment!
Finally we started using colors. Our kits only came with the basics. Frederick took us on a field trip and we found the most amazing bargains on makeup. What I loved more than anything was experimenting with color and buying colors I would have never ever bought before. I never thought Pink eyeshadow would look good on me, but check me out!
One of my favorite moments was learning how to properly do an open and closed smoky eye. Here's my version of a closed smoky eye using black and pink eye shadows.Eventually we had to do our fantasy looks. This was particularly difficult for me, as I am not a particularly experimental makeup artist. We had to get inspired by something and then interpret it. My inspiration was Star Trek of the 1970's. Particularly Lieutenant Uhura. I love her look! So glamorous with her black winged eyeliner, frosty lipstick and big hair. But then I thought that was too simplistic. so I started thinking Klingon. I will not show a pic. I absolutely hated what I did and never took a picture. Everyone else did an amazing job. I just wasn't proud of what I did and it was probably one of my lowest points in the class.
For our final exam there were three parts. One was we had to interpret a look that was "J-Lo meets Lucille Ball" on our own faces. WTF? I unfortunately don't have any pictures of my creation, because I got a near perfect score! The second part was the written exam. Finally we had to work with a model (one we weren't used to) and re-create a look from a face chart. I loved my look and so did my teacher!
The two lines extending from the inner corners of her eyes were part of the look. I thought they looked weird, but ... My model said her eyebrows were the best they've ever looked. I was really proud of that!Guys! I'm a makeup Artist!!!!
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