Hi Everyone! This week I filmed a Kendall Jenner inspired Makeup Tutorial for LA College of Creative Arts YouTube Channel. I would love it if you could all take a look! Watch, comment and make sure you Subscribe! I would love to hear what you think.
Vicky xo
Today, while working at LA Creative (the sister company to my college just attended), we had a bridal party come in to get their hair and makeup done for the wedding. Lucky for me, the bride Vicky was my client and she could not have been more of a pleasure to work with! I’d watched plenty of ‘Bridezillas’ back in the day so I was a little nervous when I first started getting into Bridal Makeup but I have to say it is one of the most rewarding jobs in the Makeup industry.
As a Makeup Artist you really have to become friends with your client in the first five seconds of knowing each other, you have to be open and honest, know whether they’re the chatty type or want to relax and make them feel comfortable, after all, you are working on their face which is pretty up close and personal. The bride Vicky made it very easy for me as she was super relaxed given her wedding was in the afternoon! Her bridal party consisted of her mother and four bridesmaids. The hair was done by Ethan and Nikita who also work in the store and the Makeup on the bridesmaids was done by Rachel, with myself also doing the Mother of the Bride.
There’s a lot to keep in mind for a Bridal Makeup besides the look itself. You need to ensure the longevity of the look and also the amount of SPF in the products (SPF reflects light and creates ‘flashback’ when taking photos making the area look paler than it is or even white). I believe 0 SPF is best, but generally products up to SPF 15 are okay.
Vicky’s look was simple and glamorous, and one thing her soon-to-be husband made her promise was no big, false lashes! Instead we went for a few on the outer edges to add some volume as they were fairly long already!
A few pictures of her are below and taken in the store LA Creative!
Thanks for reading! Drop by again soon xo
One of my favourite work experiences with LA College of Creative Arts was the opportunity to work alongside tutor Aidan Corcoran and fellow student Karen Glynn on the College’s Discovery Day. The event was held for current and upcoming students to find out about the college and all it has to offer. We on the other hand were there to demonstrate some skills!
We spent around 7 hours on the day body painting our model Nathan. It was so much fun and our model was a great sport considering he had to stand still for so long! Aidan designed the look, going for a statue-esque base, blanking out the entire body with white, then going in with grays and blacks to contour the natural shapes of the body. We then placed LA College’s logo in the middle of the torso and made it to look like a paint splash! To add some colour, we coated the rest of the body in coloured paint splashes.
It was an incredible day and the college had a great turnout! The SFX crew also had a demo along with some of our great tutors to demonstrate all of the skills that can be gained here at LA!
Below is our finished product!
Helps when you have a gorgeous model too, doesn’t it? Talk soon folks xo
A Facebook notification pops up on my phone and to my surprise it is from my mentor Marie-Therese Byrne. It shows a screenshot of a previous post where I wrote about a makeup she did and how she couldn’t believe she had only just come across it. Someones still reading my blog? Let alone going back a few posts? My poor blog, I got so caught up in other things that I had completely abandoned it! Luckily MT is around, she may have just been the little motivation I needed to get back into it!
As I recap on the year that was, I remember all the fun moments, the silly times, the hard work, the amazing experiences and all that I have learnt whilst being at LA College of Creative Arts. It truly was the year of a lifetime and moving away from home to come here and experience it was the best decision I have ever made.
So much has happened since then so I figure I’ll stick to some highlights for this post!
First would be the two publications I’ve added to my portfolio! One for Stellar Magazine and one for the newly released Insider Mag. For the Stellar Magazine I worked alongside fellow LA Student Megan Burke where we provided Hair & Makeup for 6 mums for a special article. For the Insider Magazine I assisted Beauty Editor Nadia El Ferdaoussi with Makeup for the male model and hairstyling. I will jump at any chance for published work! The contacts you make and knowing that so many people are looking at something that you did is such a great feeling and so worth the long days on set.
These are the images from the Stellar Magazine photoshoot:
A few other highlights included being involved with both the UCD and Trinity college fashion shows! LA College provides hair and makeup for both and it is so fun seeing all the hard work come to an amazing show at the end of the day! I was also able to work for a corporate box at the One Direction concert in Croke Park meaning I got a wee glimpse of the show!
We also had a few more photoshoots within the college before graduation. They are shown below!
Images from a Character Photoshoot (Galaxy and Half’n’half). Model:Tessa Muldoon.
The following images were from a Beauty photoshoot. Model: Clodagh Power.
There were many more exciting things crammed into the past few months with one of the biggest being our Graduation! However for the sake of this post being too lengthy, I think we shall save that for another day!
Now that my days as a student at LA College of Creative Arts are over and I go on to working as a Summer Intern for them over the next three months, the style of my blog may change as my skills and knowledge within the industry progress! Expect a few reviews, recommendations, looks with product lists etc as well as my usual recapping which Mum and Dad along with others back home tend to find helpful in keeping up to date with me over this side of the world!
That’s me for today! Have a great weekend and I’ll be in touch soon xo
Well I think it’s fair to say that so far, February has been full on. Since my last blog post I have been up to many exciting things and have had many amazing opportunities, all which I couldn’t be more thankful for! Let’s start where I left off…
The Saturday after finishing Fantasy Makeup, I was privileged to help out on a weekend shoot for other LA College classes doing smaller courses. Because their classes are smaller, they do not focus on hair and that’s where me and some of my friends came in! They were doing natural makeup and bridal photoshoots and trusted us with their lovely models to create some gorgeous hairstyles. It is so important at this time in the industry that Makeup Artists know how to style hair, even if it’s only the basics. So many jobs now are searching for Makeup and Hair artists as opposed for one of each, obviously saving money for them, and having a greater knowledge of hair really advantages us. The photoshoot was run by Adrienne Kennedy Campion, whom tutors these classes. It is a privilege to work alongside her as she is very motivating and an incredible MUA herself. After the photoshoot we also walk away with the final, edited images to use in our portfolio, proving we can do hair! It’s a real win-win situation!
The next week, brought us back to college where we learnt about Asian and Ethnic skin and did a skills test. I had a lovely model named Alexa who came in for me and I was incredibly happy with the end result of her makeover! She had the most beautiful lips, and I think the colours used looked stunning on her. For the skills test, our tutor Louise Dunne had a photo of Val Garland’s makeup and got us to recreate it under time pressure. It was definitely as hard as it looked!!
My Makeover on the gorgeous Alexa!
The Val Garland image pictured above and my recreation pictured below!
Much to improve on but giving the circumstances I’m pretty proud of the outcome!
Next on the Agenda was airbrushing…and a lot of it! Airbrushing is an interesting technique, I’m not sure that I particularly like it for foundation application. I definitely think I’m one for having more control and I feel I can’t achieve that with a gun, but more so with a brush. Giving that, I did have an incredible amount of fun when we were allowed to do more wacky and crazy looks! I chose to do a graffiti inspired one. I was happy with the look but I did have a lot more planned for it, unfortunately airbrush guns like to become clogged…A LOT, so I spent most of my allocated time, taking apart, cleaning and reassembling! The look is pictured below on my model, Jen O’Connor – whom might I add is incredibly patient and helpful when cleaning the guns!!
During our airbrushing week, I was also offered the chance for some work experience and I was more than delighted to hear that it was for none other than Stellar magazine! Myself and Megan Burke made our way down to 9 Bond Street Studios – an amazing building full of studios owned by renowned photographer Barry McCall – where we set up our stations in the salon and got to work on six young mums, getting their makeup and hair done for their shoot. Not to mention, all the children were there too! It was an interesting day, filled with cute kids and also a lot of glam! The shoot is for a spread on young mums and will feature in the upcoming issue, being released this week. I am so excited to see my work published in such a well-known Irish Mag and it was such a great experience working in different circumstances! I.e. dodging the child sitting on mum’s lap and having them throw our makeup on the ground – so cute though, can’t stay mad at their wee faces! I look forward to sharing the shots with you when I receive them!
Next up we did some body painting – Nothing too big or full on. Just a few pictures and illustrations here and there to get a knack for using the paints etc – if you click on my instagram feed to the right of the page you will be able to see some images of my work there.
Amongst all the college work – I also earned myself a new job working at Zeba Hairdressing in their Makeup department. I am incredibly excited to be working in an environment where I get to practice my skills and converse with clients several times throughout the day and am ever so blessed to have this job! Another step closer to my goals! Every work experience is good experience!
Well, I suppose it’s back to reality now, with an assignment due, second stage of my Graded Unit project to complete and a photoshoot to organise – it’s going to be a busy couple of weeks..oh and it’s my birthday tomorrow! 😉
Vicky xo
To end our Fantasy Makeup module, my class, LA Elite, prepared one last look. My look was inspired by none other than a Dragon! I tossed and turned for ages trying to think of something to interpret when I thought of the Taniwha. Taniwha’s are a mythical creature of Maori culture, and are basically dragon like beings. This led me on to researching dragons and dragon makeups and coming up with my very own look! If you search Taniwha’s and New Zealand, you should be able to find some interesting information on them- there’s also a cute, wee Taniwha song – kind of like a nursery rhyme – that all the kids used to sing when we were younger.
My dragon look was very simple, just using water-based Face Paints and eyeshadow to create. The scales were made by using a mesh bag which I bought lemons in, then holding it over the skin and pressing over it with eyeshadow. I also gave my model, Elena Costello, little dragon nostrils and a wee dragony frown line with a kohl pencil in black from the Bodyshop and that was basically it! I like that although it is fantasy makeup, it still is beauty makeup and Elena still looks as lovely as ever- despite being a dragon and looking like she has a unibrow!
My dragon look is below and below that is the Queen of Hearts look that Elena did on me – just to give you a peek!
Fantasy Makeup – a way to produce makeups portraying mythical and/or majestical creatures or things. Fantasy Makeup allows you to transform yourself into anything you can think of. It doesn’t have to be a full face of makeup – it could be the simplest of things – but we’re in Makeup college and we all love being creative and having fun so why not!
Wednesdays are half days so we only had enough time to produce one look today! There was an uneven number in today so I was lucky to work on Leah, a lovely (and patient) girl doing work experience for LA College, this allowed me to have a little more time to perfect my look as no one would be recreating a look on me. I decided to take my inspiration from the galaxy and many of the space makeups I saw around Halloween. The finished look is below:
To begin the look, I blocked out the eyebrows with the use of Prozade (an adhesive glue used for Special Effects) and Special Effects Wax. This wasn’t a necessary step however I had the time so threw the practice in. I then layered a salmon coloured cream concealer with a concealer that matched Leah’s skin tone, making sure to apply translucent powder between each layer and voila, the eyebrows disappeared! I then used a Supercolour from Kryolan in black to create and fill in the upside-down triangle shape. Then just using highly pigmented eyeshadows in my chosen colours, I distributed random amounts of colours throughout the black. I then added some fun glitter and small diamantes before colouring in the lips with a gold and glittery Supercolour form Kryolan. It’s an incredibly easy look to create and can be done very quickly if need be although I think the result is quite effective and I’m very happy with todays look!
The photo below is courtesy of Marie-Therese Byrne and shows some of us in action!
As you can see in the photo above, all of the looks were incredibly individual but all completed to the highest standard and all really amazing and creative! Goes to show you can get your Fantasy inspiration from anywhere! xo
Note: Makeup in above photo from top-left and going clockwise done by – Sara Griffin, Elena Costello, Myself and Niamh O’Riordan
Today was an amazing day at LA college, filled with endless creativity and a whole lot of colour! Not to mention…GLITTER!
When we arrived in class, there were boxes filled of Avant Garde dreams – infinite amounts of glitter and fun colours awaiting their turn to be used, but what better way to begin the day then with a Makeup demo from our tutor Marie-Therese Byrne and who luckier to be the model, than myself!
She did an incredibly fun and bright look with bold, crazy shaped brows and a lot of colours. No rules to stick to, no need to worry about symmetry or crisp, clean lines and blending. Just pure magic and art. Avant Garde really is the perfect opportunity for us to be inspired, it’s not beauty makeup, the boundaries and rules are there to be broken. You can do whatever you like, execute it well and have it interpreted a million, different ways which I think is a huge reason behind why I love this kind of makeup. Nothing really offends me more than seeing amazing work by the likes of Alex Box and Pat McGrath being criticized by close-minded people that really know nothing about art and the theatricality behind Avant Garde makeups. ‘My two year old could do that in his sleep’, Yeah, well, your two old isn’t an internationally recognised Makeup Artist. The photo that Marie-Therese did on me is pictured below – I must warn you though, I am in no way a model and this photo is a sneaky iPhone selfie!
Time was then handed over to us to create our own Avant Garde look. I did my look on the model, Clodagh Power and I have to say, I’m actually pretty happy with the outcome! I began by creating a bronzed face, using Makeup Forever Face & Body Foundation mixed in with some Honey Bronze lotion which has a lot of glittery, gold in it to create a gorgeous sheen. This was layered over a face prepped with MAC Strobe Cream. I used Maybelline Gel Liner in Black to draw on my thick brows, and used BEN NYE colour refills to paint the brush strokes on to the face – these were cream based and extremely pigmented so were applied like a dream! I finished the look by adding Cinema Secrets Cosmetic Glitter in a Turquoise Blue and Gold to areas of the face, added Mascara, fake lashes and smeared a smudge of Black Eyeliner from the Bodyshop over the lips. Very unusual, completely Avant Garde!
The look above is my look on Clodagh.
The look below is Clodagh’s look on me – Hunger Games inspired and once again, a complete selfie!
I look forward to sharing the rest of my week with you all! xo
Today at LA, we began our next module of Advanced Fashion & Photographic, with our first topic being…
Avant Garde!
With Avant Garde, comes a chance for us all to let our creativity and imagination run wild to produce some eye-capturing and individual Makeups. Our first task was to research and create a look, suitable for an editorial or runway show, but still Avant Garde. This meant we had to be weary of going to ‘fantasy-like’ and sticking to the beauty makeup side of things.
For my look, I decided to do a very dewy and luminous skin, with a metallic contour and a stained petal-lip. I took my inspiration from galactic beings and also cherry blossoms – random, I know. My look was to go alongside fashion from the likes of Gareth Pugh or Alexander McQueen in one of their runway shows. To create the luminous skin, I mixed MAC Strobe Cream with MAC Face & Body in White – this also added to the pale appearance of the skin which I wanted to make it look more innocent, youthful and also alien-esque. I simply used a metallic eyeshadow to contour and swept a wash of this over the eyes. I used MAC Viva Glam Nicki and pressed it on the inside of the lips, which were prepped with a MAC Eyeliner in Fascinating. I then used this eyeliner to coat around the eyes and also as a mascara.
Simple as that and done in a second!
My look is modeled on Clodagh Power.
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Vicky xo
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