Swinging Sixties

After a day of snuffly fluey bed rest, the mouses tale continues.... Today the turn of the iconic 60s. Think Twiggy, Jean Shirmpton (half of the girls in our class didnt actually know who Jean was....nothing like it to make you feel old...) Brigitte...of the Bardot variety, Mary Quant, Biba, Rolling Stones, The Beatles...i could go on.... Laura was pinned into the make up chair today as i primped and poofed her into a Twiggy esque scenario... Contempler:

Laura here, with a pale base and a touch of corrective under the eyes. Lots of powder....

By now i had covered the lids with a white base, built up on thin layers, a very dark black socket line was added (several times, to get it in the right place....) this was then smudged a smidge under neath but kept crisp at the top. umm...had i added lashes yet?...yes, i had. I applied black cake eyeliner along top and bottom lashes, along with a few drawn on lower lashes. Then mascara...lots. The brows were groomed and filled in with a dark browny colour to thicken. I then tentatively applied the false eyelashes....surprisingly successfully...

To finish i added blusher in a taupey colour just below the cheek bones, and i mixed a very pale pinky, peachy colour and applied to the lips. I also backcombed the hair loosely and pinned the top section, very roughly, to give an idea of volume.

Laura was then instructed to stand against the wall and smoulder like never before, for my final photo...gal done good. X

1920s

Yesterday we mastered the 20s...well, mastered isnt quite the word...it turns out that waxing half an eyebrow to the forehead is actually the most difficult thing IN THE WORLD!!! regard:

The lovely Jodi. Here, i had waxed the bottom half of the unruly brows, to create a thin, highly arched 1920s style brow. I then applied sealer. After this. i mixed a pale foundation and applied all over the face, followed by the palest pan stick. This photo looks pretty good but about 4 hours later the poor girl looked like she had some sort of eyebrow specific leprosy....

By now i had filled in her dark smokey eyes, lined them and applied lashings of mascara. i love that when we watched the demo of this, our tutor said "in the 1920s women were just getting used to make up, it was a new thing so would have been applied quite crudely"....i clearly ran with this notion! I had also by now drawn in her elongated and 'sad' looking brows. A touch of blush and those tight rose bud lips in a deep plum colour.

and the best bit of the day....the wig. Everyone seems to love the wig bit....Jodi gets especially excited when the wigs come out, and she seems to look good in all of them...damm her....

Thanks Jodi. x

18th century

Aaaaaand it gets better!... Today was period make up, starting with 18th century. Think Marie Antoinette, The Duchess, "let them eat cake", debautcherous drinking, masquerade parties, hand fans etc etc..... you get the picture? Please remember that ours was a theatrical version so highly exaggerated: The glorious Elle before

Soaping out the eyebrows, and then covering with concealor and derma colour, in an attempt to make the little creatures disappear

The rest of the face has now been covered with the palest theatrical pan stick i had using a damp sponge. I then pencilled in the brows, higher than the natural ones, and painted them in with cake eyeliner. The whole lot was powdered beyond belief before, after and during, this process

By now i had lined the upper lashes and smudged, applied mascara, and blushed her cheeks with a bright pink. I then drew on her tiny little rose bud lips and filled with lip liner. Elle has incredible bee sting lips, which made her rose buds a little plumper than the norm, but i think it really added to the look....umm....what else?...oh yeah, the all important beauty spot to finish

and the icing on the cake (literally so it would seem...) the wig!

such a fun day, thanks for being my patient model, and swapping some bloody good Aussie tales Elle! x

Today was the turn of camouflage make up. We sat thru a demo which always looks annoyingly simple....a ha, how wrong was i?! being one of 4 in our group of 12, who sported a grand total of 5 tattoos, i was then pinned into a chair, stripped of my black skinnies and pounced upon with derma palettes of many skin tones, translucent powder, and a distinct loathing of my ink.....i felt quite sad watching my black smudgy birth marks fading away into nothingness. The girls did a great job. After lunch was my turn. As my model, the lovely Abby, had not a tatt in sight, our tutor had to ink one on for her. I then spent the next 2 hours cursing and sweating as i tried, tried, and tried again, to cover the stubborn mark, alas to no avail. All i ended up with was a patch of arm the shade of an angry baby, and a model with an achy elbow. Never fear, i thought, as i packed my brush roll, palette and powders into my army green satchel....my evening ahead was now planned. I returned home and finally mastered it after several tries. here is my result, and one i am rather proud of: before

satge1 - covering ink lines with red derma colour

final result

leg before

again, at the red pigment stage

final result

finally i can now sleep! good night! x

a few pics of the thicket that was my bedroom floor as i skipped about, painting, plaiting, typewriteing, and glueing the night before my Ice project.

and my mood board

Days 2 thru 5.

The next few days flew by in a rush of pink cheeks and swishing brushes. Each day I find I am learning so much that my eyes feel they may pop from my grease paint laden skull. My brain hops, skips and flits around from one idea to the next, excercising its gazell like tendancies with free abandon. I feel a strange sense of relief, like im home, like ive found my neiche. Day 2 – Base make up. Learning to apply a basic foundation blend, conceal blemishes and under eye shadows, tame and fill eyebrows. Basically setting the base ready for the next step.

Day make up. Learning to apply a light day make up that can be used on men or women, making them basically ready for camera. Includes evening out the skin tone, covering blemishes and marks, a light eye shadow with basic shading, basic lip line and colour, taming and filling brows. Obviously this would depend on the actor actress and what they needed.

Day 3 – Evening make up. Applying base, then using heavier colours and heavier technique to shade the eyes. A heavier liner used around the eye, including false eye lashes and mascara. Blush to high light cheeks, staying rather neutral for the lip line and lip colour so as not to over do the look.

Day 4 – Contouring. Applying base, then using grease paint on one half of the face, and a mat bronzing powder on the other half to contour the face and create prominent cheek bones, jaw line. Can also slim line the nose, shorten the forehead etc. Note: Sofia, pictured here, did not need any contouring but for the sake of practice agreed to let me attack her with paint and powder…thanks Sofia!

Day 5 – Project. Our brief was to choose either Fire or Ice. We were then allowed to let loose with what we had learned so far, and our imaginations. Once I met my lovely model Sarah, I chose Ice. She has amazing red hair and pale complection, with piercing blue eyes. I went away and created a mood board, and then several ideas. I settled upon turning her into an snow Indian. I became fixated with the idea of snowball fights, and the way in which snow skitters along the ground, or down a window when thrown. I wanted to create this down her face. This then lead me to look at native Indian face markings which I fell in love with and created with grease paint. I also created a dreadlocked hair braid with blonde hair extensions, fabric, feathers and bells. I clipped this into the hair and then plaited it in. Eyebrows were combed upwards with hairspray to spike them, under the eye was heavily shaded with charcoal eyeshadow and then lined. No mascara was used. The lips were kept simple with a tiny touch of grease paint and Macs lethal lips gloss.I finished the make up and hair with my favourite fur lined hunting hat, and whipped up a whimsical outfit from an old African nighty, gloves and heaps of jewellery that I had made previously. This created an eclectic, wild woman sort of character, which i aimed to keep beautiful and sexy. A high fashion look. Many thanks to Sarah for letting me go for it, and not questioning the methods within my madness!

First week o school - Day 1

Sat 24th sept 2011 Week 1 of school is over. The week started with a nervous Mousey, pedalling her rickety bike thru the back streets of Barnes to high tail it to Chiswick tube station, then fly swiftly, the 2 tube stops to Ealing broadway, the end of the line. I made it bright and early and with little sweat…always a keen feat for a cyclist in a rush. I pottered over the green towards the large silver Ealing Studios sign, a tad nervous but excited beyond belief. All 50 of us gathered in one room, the walls lined with workstations, the formidable light bulb surrounded mirrors gleaming back our nervous faces. The tutors all came in and took up a seat at the front of the room. The infamous name tag ridmirale took place first, followed by the general first day talk, including the old ‘stand up and say a few words about yourself’ ice breaker, that I have become rather accustomed too these days. After being informed which groups we were in, we broke off into seperate class rooms and were presented with the holy grail of the make up school. Our kits. The bit we had all been waiting for. A large silver canter leavered box was thrust in my direction. Carefully we all cracked open the lids, followed by plenty of “ooh”’s and “aah”’s as we tucked into the make uppy feast. After an hour luncheon, which was spent sitting on a park bench slurping cold carrot soup from the honey jar I had brought it in, and nibbling on oat cakes, whilst mindlessly sketching the rather large Indian man sitting across the park from me, we dutifully piled back into our classrooms. We were instructed to partner up. I turned to my right to a girl called Rowan, and she nodded in agreement. We would be buddies for this afternoon. We then took it in turns to, firstly, prod each other faces to feel out the prominent bones of the skull and face, then we delicately sketched on the outline with eyeliner, then the fun part, the grease paint. We pulled out large palettes of the greasy clown like face paints and delved into each pot with gusto applying liberally great swathes of white and black, swiftly turning our partners into reapers of the grimmest nature. 2 hours flew past as we swapped over and I tried desperately, not to fall asleep as the swishing of brushes coaxed my drowsy lids at the end of a well worn day. Summary: First day, a roaring success and found me skittering home on my bike and back to the nest within the hour. A large cous cous salad, relaxed evening and early to bed ready for another day of make up fun. x