When Pop Culture and superheroes meet the Elizabethans

The excellent Super Flemish project of French photographer Sacha Goldberger, who transports the Pop Culture and superheroes into classical Flemish painting and fashion of the Elizabethan era… Some gorgeous retro versions of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Darth Vader, Hulk and so on!

References:

• When pop culture and superheroes meet classical Flemish painting (2014) Available at: http://www.ufunk.net/en/photos/super-flemish/ (Accessed: 29 November 2015).

Final evaluation

At the beginning both me and Taylor were a bit afraid that this wouldn't work, but I trusted her and she got better and better everyday. She wasn't so confident in her skills when we first tried to do my design and that's why it was hard to work but with practice she gained confidence and she did it flawless. I know that she didn't do a make-up school/course before and I tried to help her as much as possible to go beyond her limits. She had some blending problems at the beginning, but that's maybe because I didn't know how to explain her better how to realize my design. With time, practice and lots of communication we understood what we want from each other and everything went very well.
I am really pleased of the outcome and how everything turned up. I can say that it was better than I expected considering my crazy design ideas and that Taylor did a great job doing my design. We worked together as a real team and we did our best to meet each other's make-up goals. We have learnt a lot from each other and I feel like this semester not only that improved my make-up skills, but also improved me as a person and my personal skills. Trying to do other's design and pleasing them is not easy but we overcame this and I think that the outcome speaks for itself. Taylor worked really hard do perfect her make-up skills and we met each other to practice my design three times before the assessment. I know that she also did a lot of practice at home and this can be seen through her results. I am very satisfied by how we collaborated and how we worked as a team and I would love to work with her again in the future.

Timed assessment - in the role of the designer/assessor

I'm so glad that assessments are finally over! Today was really good, except the fact that I had to rush to had my pictures taken...which happened everytime and which I didn't like, because everyone was queuing to take photographs and everyone was stressed. I hope that next time won't be the same and that we'll have enough time to take beautiful pictures of the design we worked, both make-up artist and designer, so hard. Yep, that was the only part of the assessment that really bothered me. I hope I won't have to get used to it and that something will be done regarding this...

Taylor did a wonderful job. She practiced my design before like crazy, we met third times before to practice and I know that she practiced at home a lot on her friends an on herself. She even bought the products that I had extra for my look so she could recreate it entirely at home. I am really proud of her progress and she really showed me that if she wants to go over her limits, she can! I am really pleased by our collaboration so far, and by the result of the assessment as well. She was really professionally, dressed all in black, with her hair tied back and without dangling jewelry. She took all the health and safety measures and always asked me if I feel ok during the assessment, just as usually. She finished in time and she also helped me to do my hair quickly before we took photos. We were a bit stressed over this but during it we relaxed, thanks to Sue who put us awesome music. It didn't really feel like an assessment which, for me, was great, because back in my country assessments, exams etc are VERY very stressful and teachers put a lot of pressure on us, which I believe is terribly wrong.

Overall, as the designer and assessor, I am happy with the result and I can't wait to see the final pictures and how teachers will react to what I did. I feel really proud of Taylor's work, of how we got better together a a team and as individual human beings and artists :)) and... of me. Because I really love what we did! (Although I slept only 3 hours last night because I had to do my handmade crown...and to make sure I am prepared for everything... everything was perfect in the end. I stressed more over Taylor's assessment rather than about mine, I don't know why. Maybe because it was my design and I really wanted everything to be perfect.)

Me and Taylor after the stress was over

Me and my uni best friend, Lia, the new Elizabethans :))

And here a couple of selfies.

Third practice of my design

taylor third practice photos

Today was a really good day. I am so excided about the final result and really pleased by Taylor's improvement. Everything went good and we also timed ourselves to know if we are in time and it was ok. Taylor also suggested an idea for improving the eyeliner which was great and so we did.

Step by step to achieve the look, products and ustensils used:


1. Cleanse and tone the face, and then put just a bit of moisturizer on your hands and gently rub it into the skin;
2. Using a flat foundation brush, spread white Supracolor all over the face. Make sure you don’t have any patches on the face and that the product is distributed evenly, blend with the same brush where necessary;
3. Blend the product that remained on the brush on the neck and ears;
4. With a clean, flat, natural hair brush, blend the product in the eye area, up towards the lower and the upper eyelid;
5. Using another flat foundation brush, sink it in a little bit of water and then apply white facepaint all over the face, excepting the eye area. There you just have to blend a little so it won’t be a harsh line of facepaint;
6. With the same brush, cover the outer ends of the eyebrows with facepaint and then blend a little on the edges, so they’ll be completely covered;
7. Using a puff, set everywhere with a lot of baby powder, excepting the eye area that needs to be unset so you can blend the green Supracolor;
8. With a small black fluffy brush, apply green Supracolor, blending it with a clean brown fluffy brush without extending it too much;
9. Put loose powder underneath the eyes to prevent any fall out, using a medium fan brush;
10.  With a flat brush, set the green Supracolor with dark teal-green eyeshadow all over the mobile eyelid and underneath;
11.  Brush out the loose powder underneath with the medium fan brush;
12.  Blend with clean blending brush the dark teal green around the eyes;
13.  Blend around the dark teal-green with the lighter shade of green without pressing too much on the blending brush, so you could create a nice transition between the colors;
14.  Blend with the light yellow the edges, really soft, without pressing, using a clean blending brush (you can clean the same brush you have used already and continue with it);
15.  Put green Supracolor on the middle of the eyelids using a flat brush and then put the glitter with a small blue brush-concealer brush and then blend the glitter a bit at the edges;
16.  Add the messy black eyeliner, let me line my waterline first;
17.  Add a bit of blended red on the inner corners of the eyebrows with a fluffy blending brush, so you can help the gems to look not so harsh;
18.  Put a bit of latex on the back of the gem with the metal spatula, let it dry a few seconds, and then place it in the inner corner of the brow, inclined a bit;
19. Apply the green little gems under the eyes;
20.  Add Kryolan blusher on the apples of the cheeks, without making it too harsh - use your blusher blush to add color and my blusher brush to blend the edges;
21.  Do the lips with dark red Supracolor and a flat synthetic brush and then create an ombre by adding black Supracolor in the outer corners of the lips. Try to overdraw the lips pretty much and to correct them with white where necessary so they will be really nice and defined. After you have done the lips, the look is complete.

Timed assessment - in the role of the make-up artist

I feel like Taylor's design was quite a challenge for me even if I did a make-up course of 4 months before and I've done make-up on many people before, because this time I couldn't use powders to set the base. Everything was cream based and it wasn't that easy for me because I wasn't used with cream contour, especially on blending it on a white base. Also I was skeptical when it came to use vaseline on the top of what I've done with make-up as Taylor said because I thought that the make-up underneath will move and will cause patches. I am happy that I didn't use vaseline to achieve the sweaty look because I truly believe that it would ruin everything and instead I opted for a dewy finish face spray by NYX who did it's job. Everything went well except at the end when I had to wait too much to take pictures of my work and the make-up, not being setted with powder, creased. But I don't really think that this was y fault because I did everything what was necessary... you just can't stop cream products to crease after a whort amount of time of you don't set them with powder.
Anyway I am pleased of how my timed assessment went and I hope that everything will be fine in the end.

Second practice of Taylor's design

This time I really improved my cream contouring skills and I made the contour lighter, just as Taylor wished to (I hope). She seemed to be very pleased by the result because we followed all the steps for her design, including adding the extra things. I felt like the design looked better this time and the hickeys were smaller and more realistic too. The only thing which I didn't really liked was that Taylor incorporated vaseline in her design, to give a sweaty finish, but I thought that spraying dewy setting spray would be enough, because I was afraid that I will ruin the whole look if I'll try to add vaseline with the kabuki brush or with the fingers over a cream based base without any powder setting. What I was afraid of really happened - everything was perfectly fine until I added the vaseline, which caused the Illamasqua skin base foundation with the max strobe cream to move and it appeared patches on the skin... I'm not so sure if I'm going to add vaseline at the assessment as it is really tricky and can ruin the whole look in just one second.
Overall the good thing was that it didn't took me as much time as it took me before and everything seemed to be easier to follow because I already knew what's going to come next.

Unfortunately I only took one picture, where the hickeys can't really be seen, because I was in a hurry:

Recreating my complementary design for a collaboration

My complementary face chart

Today I had to recreate the complementary design I have done for my colour theory homework and it was great! I had the opportunity to help a second year Fashion Journalism student, whose name is Andruta Nicoleta Mihai, to do her "behind the scenes" short video and it was aaaaamazing!

I am super exhausted but I still have the energy left to write a few words about today's work...

I wanted to create a graphic cat eye look, which had complementary colours, so the contrast will make the make-up pop. This look is not a wearable everyday look but a fashion, editorial make-up, which doesn't really suit every eye shape, because it needs a quite big arcade and a crease. But fortunately I had a beautiful, patient model and everything turned up well. To make the eye make-up even bolder, I added some glitter and I felt it looked better than without. 

The overall finish of the complexion was dewy and tanned, because the lemon-yellow that I choosed made me think about warm, summer days, and I think that this worked best. In the end, I have up using purple in the upper corner of the nasal bridge and on the chin, because I felt like it was too much when applied on the model. On the facechart looks good, but I didn't like how it would look on the model. I've chosen to keep the eyebrows nice and clean, making them as I would usually do them for a beauty make-up, because the model's eyebrows were pretty thick and I just couldn't style them the way I wanted.

All in all, my design was about strong complementary colours, emphasized contouring, dewy and tanned skin and of course, graphic cat eyes!

I am excited about the result and I can't wait to see more of the video that Andruta made!

Second practice of my design

This time I loved the result. Taylor definitely improved her skills and did the make-up way better than the first time. We tried to achieve a scmoother but not so smooth white base on the other side of the face and it worked better than on th first side that we've tried so we did only one side of the face, the good one. I am really pleased by how this turned up and I feel that Taylor gained more confidence and that's really good.

Historical Elizabethan make-up application - Studio

Last week, my partner Taylor, had practiced the historical Elizabethan make-up, and today it was my turn. 

I started by creating a consultation sheet and by consulting my model:

After this step, I started the cleansing, toning and moisturizing process.

After the face was properly prepared, I started my historical Elizabethan make-up application:

1. Applied the Illamasqua skin base foundation in white with a kabuki brush and blended it out a bit (because for the traditional make-up we were told that we should achieve more like a "flaky and chalky" base, because Elizabethans haven't hot proper ustensils and products like we do, to achieve a smooth and even base);
2. Blocked out the eyebrows with white Kryolan Supracolor and a mascara wand;
3. Heavy powdered the face with a puff and Ben Nye neutral setting powder;
4. Applied Kryolan blush from the blusher palette on the apples of the cheeks, in a dabbing motion (I asked my model to smile for me) with a blusher brush from Real Techniques;
5. Applied White Supracolour on the upper and lower eyelashes using a disposable mascara wand, in a zig zag motion;
6. Applied colour on the lips using my fingers, as a traditional Elizabethan would do.

Photos of my final result:

I am pretty pleased with my outcome and I really enjoyed applying the Elizabethan make-up in a traditional way.

Taylor's first practice of my design

Today was the first time when me and Taylor met outside of the timetable to practice my design.
We worked a lot and stayed in the studio until it was closed... we worked from 4.30 to 8.30 to manage somehow to make it right. After this practice session I felt a bit sad because I thought that I gave Taylor a design that just cannot be done in 1 h 30, as we need for the assessment, but then she told me that she'll practice more at home and she won't give up so I trusted her. She didn't do a make-up course before neither did make-up on many people so she could be used to it, and I could see that it was a bit hard for her now, because she is at the beginning. But I tried my best to give her the best explanations possible, and in the end it went well. We also haven't got enough time to finish the whole look, as I've practiced hers first, and mine really needed a bit more time, but we tried the base and the eye make-up, along with the blusher. I didn't test more times at home, just a few days before, once, but for me it worked and I did it good from the first time, and I didn't realize that for somebody else would take more time to do it. Also, I don't really know if my indications were so good and I think I'll have to go through them one more time, so everything will be better next time. I'm seriously considering simplifying the design to take less time.
Anyway I see that Taylor really wants to improve her skills and to help me achieve the best outcome from my design and I believe that she will do this with more practice!

My indications:

First practice of Taylor's design

Today was my first attempt in creating Taylor's design of Anne Vavasour. It was a really hard day because we had to stay late in the studio to practice but after this practice session I feel  more confident about the assessment that is going to come.
At first I really didn't know how to start although Taylor was well prepared and bought me her facecharts and two sheets of printed indications. Maybe it was because I wasn't used with the products as I couldn't order my Illamasqua kit and she had some extra products added for her design.
But it got better after she explained literally every step that I had to do.
I am pleased by how my design turned up although I didn't really like the contour that much because I felt that I made it a little bit too harsh. I could work next time at reducing the time too, because this time it took me really long to finish the make-up. We forgot a few steps as well, but it wasn't a major change in the design. We'll try those steps next time when we'll practice.
I had a lot of fun doing the hickeys as I didn't do these before! It was really interesting to learn how to do them and what tools and products should I use. I feel like I know more things about make-up from today's practice session and that's a really good thing!


This is Taylor's final face chart, which I had to recreate:

Here are the indications for her design, which were annotated by me with the new changes and everything:

And here are the pictures from my first practice session:

Example of my final look done by me at home

The facechart:

When I first tried to create my design on me, I didn't include the eyeliner strokes in the eye make-up because this idea came up during the process when Taylor did it on me.

I tried to achieve the whitest white possible just using Supracolour but it didn't work, so in my mind came the idea to use facepaint on the Supracolor. It worked, and to set everything and to achieve a deeper white, I've used baby powder. This was for the base. For making the eyebrows dissapear, I tried to block them with latex and tissue, but I realised that I don't really know how to do this properly and when I blended the eyeshadow it didn't look good so I left the other eyebrow simple, covering it with a feather. Everything else went well, but I noticed that in order to create fine blusher, not a harsh one, I needed to put more powder on so it can be blended better. I hope that when I'll first practice this with Taylor to work better.

 This was my initial example of the final look:

Development of my Lady in Waiting make-up design - Lettice Knollys

I have chosen the bad girl: Lettice Knollys (1540 - 1634)

Lettice Knollys as Countess of Leicester, c. 1585 by George Gower

For me this Lady in Waiting seemed to be the most interesting one, with the naughtiest story behind, and that inspired me. I thought that I can be more creative when doing a bad character so here I am, researching the historical background, the symbolism behind what I want to incorporate in my final design and creating another story for my character.

When I read a bit about Lettice, I instantly knew what I was going to do. Of course, my design changed a bit from facechart to facechart and from practice to practice, but it was the same idea from the start. I don't know why, when I'm super excited I can't sleep at night and when I'm in bed  I think a lot about what is going to happen, and then wonderful ideas suddenly pop into my head and I have to get out of the bed, turn on the lights and write them down so I can finally go to sleep peacefully and stop annoyng my boyfriend who tries to sleep. :))

Here are some interesting historical facts about Lettice Knollys:

• Lettice Knollys was known as the Lady in Waiting that married Robert Dudley, Queen’s favourite;
• She was the Queen’s cousin and they have been friends since childhood, being younger than her;
• She was also one of the most beautiful women from the court, her features matching the 16th century standard of beauty;
• Lettice had 3 husbands, and Robert Dudley was the second. After his death, she became a rich widow, beautiful but heartless;
• Once the Queen heard about their “secret” marriage, she banished Lettice from the court.

Really interesting character, isn't it? Yep, for me it really is.

Mark Satchwill: Lettice Knollys

The struggle:

To create a contemporary design for Lettice’s look, I had to brainstorm a little… and I started by writing down what I have learnt researching.
And to write in my notebook every idea that came into my mind at night when I was trying to fall asleep.

My brainstorming sheet

My nasty notes and handwriting

After researching the secret meaning of every colour I wanted to use for my design, looking at portraits of Lettice Knollys and trying to imagine how her character was, I concluded the following:

• I should use green for the eyes, because she was like a “green eyed monster”, envying Queen Elizabeth for everything she couldn’t have;
• A touch of golden-green glittery powder in the centre of the eyes, because she got rich when she married her second husband, Robert Dudley, but again… considering the saying “The eyes are the mirror of the soul”, the green glitter also symbolised that her soul was corrupted and poisoned by envy, even if the sparkle (her beautiful features) tried to hide this;
• Red for defining the inner corner of the eyebrows because red and green are complementary colours, which symbolises her duality (the friend and the “frenemy” for Elizabeth), and the contrast between her appearance and her soul’
• Blushed cheeks symbolising youth and beauty (she was younger than the Queen);
• Red and black ombre lips – she was sensual, beautiful, rich, but she cannot hide forever the poison that was inside her soul.

My first face chart.

Second face chart and the dirty blended one.

Third face chart and the best one.

References:

• Elizabethan makeup 101 (no date) Available at: http://www.elizabethancostume.net/makeup.html (Accessed: 2015).
• Lettice Knollys (2015) in Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettice_Knollys (Accessed: 2015).
• Lettice Knollys by Mark Satchwill (2007) Available at: http://www.artwanted.com/imageview.cfm?ID=553166&IRV=1 (Accessed: 2015).
• Meaning of colors (no date) Available at: http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/meaning-colors.htm (Accessed: 2015).
• Morton, J. (no date) Explore colors. Available at: http://www.colormatters.com/color-symbolism/the-meanings-of-colors (Accessed: 2015).