Contouring And Highlighting

    Contouring and highlighting, one of the biggest beauty tricks around at the moment from subtle and almost nothing on the skin, to dramatic Kim Kardashian hardcore contouring and 'baking' highlights, you name it, it's probably been done in the highlighting and contouring world! But as you'll be able to see from my images above, we went very natural with our contour, highlight and blush which is perfect for our beauty portion of this project.
    I started by applying the foundation to my models skin but not powdering, as we started to contour with cream products this'll help it apply much smoother to the skin and once I was done I then went and powdered the whole face to stop creasing. I then enhanced the shadow we created and added a small touch of bronzer and blended upwards into the small touch of pink blush I applied just above the contour and slightly onto the apple of the cheek, and then moved onto highlight. For highlight I used my glam glow palette and used the highlighter that leaned more on the chrome side, then took a small fluffy brush and dusted a small amount on the very tops of the cheekbones, again blending into the blush very slightly.
    I was very pleased with my contouring and highlighting I did in this lesson and thought when I get round to shooting my beauty images, this sublet contour will really enhance shadows and light on camera making the models skin glow and creating an overall more pleasing image. I also can't wait to try out some of these techniques on my male model for my final beauty images!

My First Make-Up Look At Uni!

    On Thursdays lesson with Kat we had to use our monochromatic face chart and recreate it on someones face! I was super excited for this lesson as this was the first time I'd created a look and done a full face of make-up on someone since being at uni, it was amazing to see your own face chart to finally be seen on someones face and to overall have fun while creating it.
    I started off by creating a very pale complexion to my model using a mixture of her normal skin tone colours and the Illamasqua white as I didn't want her to be pure white, I just wanted to create the illusion of a very pale face as I was using warm orange tones and I thought having a pale face would help my look standout a lot more than if I kept her national skin tone which is yellow based and rather tanned.
    I then moved onto the eyes, I wanted to create a sunken in effect to the eyes and to create this I used the Charles Fox bright eyeshadow palette and the different tones of orange, yellow and a burnt orange red. Starting with one of the orange shades I packed this onto the lid and slightly blended up into the crease to create a base to work my eyeshadows around, I then started to build deeper shades of orange into the crease creating definition to the eye and start to create that sunken in, blown out effect. Next I decided to go in with the orange red colour and added this into the crease, again creating more depth the moved to the inner corner of the eye up near the brow bone and started to flick shadow up into the brow to create a blown out effect. After I had got my desired opacity I wanted to make this look even more warm so I took the yellow shade in the same palette and added this around the edges of the look which also helped me blend out the eyeshadow even more and the eyeshadow was complete!
    Using the same Charles Fox bright eyeshadow palette I started to contour the face, by using the orange and yellow shades in this palette to match the eyes. I took my Zoeva small buffing brush and started to contour the face by building up the colours and also blending them out using the same yellow shade.
    While creating this look I wanted to keep it very soft and blown out which I believe I achieved when executing my look. Looking back at my design now I wish I used a small line of eyeliner to help ground the look and help tie it all together and also adding more definition to the eyes as even though this look is very dramatic, I felt it didn't have much definition at the eyes which I think eyeliner would of solved this issue. The lips is another part I wish I could of changed and made them so much more dramatic and opaque by over lining them slightly to give them more body, then going in with a orangey red Charles Fox super colour and used this method instead of just using a thin layer of orange lipstick. In my future looks I will keep this small details in mind, and hopefully execute it in a much bigger and better way as I keep learning new techniques!

Analogous Face Chart

    Analogous: For this face chart I wanted semi dramatic make-up, so I created a purple wing of eyeshadow and a pop of blue on the lid, this whole look I wanted to be dramatic but in a much softer way compared to my first design. Seeing as the eyes are so cold you need that extra bit of warmth from the skin, so I added bronzer as well as a pink blush to tie the look together, I then went and created an ombre lip of a rosy lip moving into a light baby pink. I chose to do an ombre lip to add dimension to the lip so they aren't just flat, and to also make the colour much softer than if it was just a flat bold colour.

    In conclusion, I do really enjoy doing face charts and how my outcomes looked in the end. However, I do think I need to work on getting fine details into my face charts as I feel like they'll just stay in this basic format which will make me not grow and learn from doing face charts, and hopefully keep improving over the years I have to do them.

Complementary Face Chart

    Complementary:  I wanted this face chart to be more of a festive and subtle look, as compared to my pervious design this one would be quite wearable when it comes closer to winter. On the eyes I'd apply a slight wash of green on the eyes to act as a base colour and to contrast between the red lips, with a touch to glitter to make the eyes more dramatic or going out, with rosy cheeks which will act as a slight contour on the face and to finish off a bright punchy red lip! Who doesn't love to rock a red lip?

Monochromatic Face Chart

  (L-R) Monochromatic: For this face chart I wanted there to be a blown out effect with the eyeshadow by hollowing out the eyes and cheeks. For this whole look I used Charles Fox bright eyeshadow palette and for the lips I used the Charles Fox super colour. I started off with the eyes by layering up the orange, yellow and orangey red shades and building the darker colour into the crease while focusing the orangey red shades in the inner and outer corners of the eye. After I had reached my desired intensity I went to contouring the face, I got a flat brush and placed it at the sides of the face and blended upwards towards the cheek bone. Lastly the orange lips I used one of the colours from the super colour palette and applied it to the lips.

Colour Theory!

    The colour wheel is divided into three different categories: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Primary: three primary colours are: red, yellow and blue. These colours are considered to be foundation colours because they are used to create all other colours.

Secondary: combining two of the primary colours, three secondary colours are formed. 

Tertiary: the six tertiary colours are made by combining a primary and an adjacent secondary colour. These are: yellow-orange, orange-red, red-violet, violet-blue, blue-green, and green-yellow.

 Warm colours: bright, passionate and tends to be eye catching colours. Warm colours include red, orange and yellow and also variations of those three colours.

In the make-up artistry, reds can be both cool and warm. If the red is blue based it is cool, but if the red is orange based it's warm.

Cool colours: normally seen as calm, soothing colours. Cool colours include violet, blue and green.

In make-up the same theory applies with the colour green. If the green has more gold/yellow undertone then it is warm. However if the green contains more blue undertone then it is cool.

Analogous: looks created by using three or more colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel.

Complementary: created by combining colours from opposite sides of the colour wheel.

London: National Portrait, Charles Fox & MAC!

    Last Thursday we all took a trip to London to visit the National Portrait Gallery and was encouraged to take a peek into the new MAC store in Carnaby Street, Illamasqua and Charles Fox.
    Our first stop was The National Portrait Gallery and saw the Elizabethan section for inspiration for our work, which I did gather some inspiration by seeing the portraits of Tudors that we'd been talking for the previous month. Even though not all the portraits was of Elizabeth it was interesting to see people who was related to her, such as King Henry 8th and Anne Boleyn and see how they was portrayed back in the 1600s. What really interests me is the use of symbolism in Elizabeth 1st portraits, the uses of powerful objects like her crown, her scepter and the globe was a big use in her portraits which shows that she's the ruler of her nation and also what she plans to take over one day.
    I also took a serious look at the make-up and hair used in these portraits, which was also very inspiring for my final pieces as I feel as if I have a better understanding of what was the beauty trends around that time, and also how Elizabeth changed the beauty ideal when cosmetics was created. During my time in the gallery I took away so much inspiration for my final outcomes and also how I would position my models when photographing them.

    Our last stop was, of course the MAC and Charles Fox stores in London! I will admit, I went slightly over the top when being in these stores but that's one of the reasons why this trip is rememberable! But the MAC store was the biggest thing planned for us, as we had a tour of the brand new store and got to view and buy their pro products with a discount of 35% off! (I low-key died a little). The MAC tour consisted off us being bought around the new store and having demos on how to use their pro products and what would be useful to have in our make-up kits in the future, (which is when I decided I need everything in the store).
    Finally, I really enjoyed this trip and I'm so thankful that our lecturers was able to take us on this trip to help us with finding inspiration for our final make-up and hair outcomes and I will defiantly be using a lot of the things I bought, and learned today in my work in the future.