the highs and the lows

The Highs and The lows of BA HONS hair and makeup level 4

Last year was my first year at Solent university taking the BA HONS hair and makeup course. I had no previous experience in the field, therefore I was a little worried the outcome of my designs were not going to be a good enough standard. Although I may have experienced many highs and lows throughout the course reflecting back on the journey through my first year of university watches me grow in terms of confidence developing my ideas and focusing on time management when carrying out an assessment .

 

      The highs of the study

          The Elizabethans

 

 


With no previous experience in the hair and makeup field, my confidence was pretty low and my journey was a pretty slow start.  The first topic we were introduced to were the Elizabethans , setting up a blog and gathering information I was pretty confident with but when it came to the practical and leading up to the assessment I began to feel slightly out of my comfort zone, after gathering my designs I started to feel slightly confident  with how to carry out the hair and the makeup  and manage my time for the assessment, however the real challenge was being paired up and carrying out my partners design which I only had a minimal amount of lessons to practice. In my own time I practiced my partners hair and makeup design using resources such as face charts my dolls head an the studios The outcome of the assessment I was surprisingly really happy with especially the hair due to having to add some last minute changes in on the day, although the padding was slightly visible and the beading which was a last minute amendment looked a little messy. The makeup I also was quite proud for a first attempt.

The photographs n the left hand side convey my makeup in the role of t designer, the hair in the role of the style and my partners makeup in the role of the artist, these pieces of work are which I felt were the highs in my journey throughout the year.

 

Miss Havisham

After we completed the Elizabethan the next topic was the introduction to the Victorians, which included creating death masks which allowed use to really explore the different ways on how to shade a face using different makeup products.

 

 The topic however which I must say  enjoyed most was the great expectations introduction and creating the Miss Havisham character, this time I really wanted to incorporate special effects into my design which I felt was something which I would enjoy, I brainstormed may ideas for the characters makeup and came to final decision of was melting down the face in order to create a metaphorical version of the character. In terms of the hair I felt we didn't have as many lessons on the design aspect of things and started to become slightly worried with what I was going to do for my final design, I however realised I had become slightly more confident with the course and even asked for help and feedback on things which I was not too sure of. The Miss Havisham character was a continuity exam meaning the exam had to be carried out twice and the design both times had to look exactly the same, this was a real eyeopener for what working in the TV and film category would be like.

 

After completing the continuity exam the first time that was when I really started to see my confidence grow and also my improvement on time management, I was also really impressed on the outcome of my Miss Havisham hair and makeup design. I felt the second part of my continuity exam wasn't as high standard as my first attempt with some differences but was a good first try .

 

Estella

Creating Estella was an informal assessment, the character which we had to create was also from the great expectations book by Charles Dickens. Before carrying out the assessment I had a chance to practice the hair and the makeup. By practicing the makeup in my own time using face charts I felt more confident and therefore used lesson time to practice the hair and ask for any feedback which I felt would improve the design overall. I felt throughout the assessment I managed my time well , I carried out the hair which was more time consuming and then the makeup, I also added final touches such as props to make the design appear more complete. I felt the makeup was complimented really well on camera.

 

Gothic horror Quentin

Our next topic I really enjoyed, I felt I allowed us to explore the makeup styling in more depth and also allowed us more freedom when gathering ideas for our final design. The introduction to the gothic horror topic firstly appeared quite daunting especially with the lack of time we had. After deciding what two characters we had chosen to create looks for aswell as our chosen TV series we then had to present our ideas to a group of people and our lecturer, I was really nervous as speaking in front of people is out of my comfort zone, however present my ideas which I was really proud of.

 

Quentin was the first character I decided to recreate, In my own time I researched into special effects gathering ideas for my final design, I was really proud of the outcome of my final design for my Quentin character due to relating the character styling to the correct time period . My Quentin design was when I could finally start to see an improvement on work from the beginning of the year .

 

Gothic horror Mrs Laderman

For my Mrs Laderman character I had a vague idea on the design I was going to used. I shot the first design in the studio but was unhappy with the outcome this negative outcome was however turnt into a positive and taught me to not leave work which I felt could be improved and really shows of my skills. I therefore returned to the studios to redo my design and make a few amendments.

 

Contextual studies

 

contextual studies allowed me to write an article relate to several chosen topics with a word count of 2000, I had a clear idea on what I was going to write about . My chosen topic was going to be how David Bowie inspired women of the 20th century . Writing articles is not one of my strengths , gathering books and using resources such as the vogue archive, galleries and websites allowed me to become more confident with what I was going to write about in order to convey to the reader the point I was trying to get across. I also attended many tutorials in order to get the feedback I needed in order to improve my essay.

 

Digital image

digital image allowed me to take my own photography and edit images which could be used for advertisements for example . I found I started to become more confident with using a canon camera after my first digital image topic and could see an improvement on my photography, I was really happy with the outcome of my location shoot, which I used for the perfume added. The photograph which we shot as a group I felt it allowed me to give feedback to my group which was something I wasn't confident with before. When editing the images I also become more confident with asking for help and advice when needed. I attended tutorials with digital image lecturer Emma to gain feedback on what would make a good image.

 

Technical file

the technical file which we had to create allowed our lecturers to see our understanding on the skills which they had taught us. This is something which  I found I was good at providing a significant amount of information on the health and safety rules and regulations the techniques and equipment needed to carry out a skill and pictures of the outcome of the makeup/ hair .

 

The lows of the study

During the start of the course I experienced many lows , this was due to not having much experience or confidence within the field. One of the first tasks which I noticed my work was not as up to scratch was creating Halloween makeup , we had a selected mount of time to replicate a skeleton face paint , the time got the better of me causing the final outcome to appear rushed, my line work was also majorly lacing . I noticed when carrying out some styles of makeup being left handed would cause me difficulties causing makeup which I would apply to the left side of the face would be smudged, I then realised I had to work back front starting from the right side of the face and working across the face in order to prevent this from happening.

 

The Elizabethans

The Elizabethans was the first topic which we had to great a design for , I found learning about the Elizabethans and gathering the information for my blog really interesting, I also felt carrying out face charts allowed me to improve on my skills, however the practical side of the course I felt I was less confident with . In terms of the hair side of the course particularly adding padding to the hair was one of my weaknesses . I also felt my design for my timed assessment was rather weak. Something which I had learnt from the Elizabethan topic was to develop my ideas further in terms of the makeup and always keep up to date with the workload set.

 

The great expectations and the Victorians

 

the next topic we were introduced to was the Victorians this I found very interesting I also expanded my resources using brainstorms books and websites , reading the great expectations book I found a little bit of a struggle due to the novel being quite a lengthy book and the lack of time I had to read it, however the positive outcome was I managed to get a clearer understanding of the story through the book and was able to compare it to the motion picture which was valuble information for my blog. The only thing I feel which could be considered as one of the lows in this part of the study was lack of time, in terms of learning Victorian hairstyles, however practicing in my own time and asking for help allowed me to turn this negative into a positive. My Miss Havisham character I was a little worried about due to it being a continuity assessment and my design being quite a difficult one to replicate however I was impressed with the outcome of the assessment, I was also a little worried about how to carry out the melted face design I used a variety of different materials until I was happy with one which I felt captured the look best.

 

Gothic horror

 

 

The final topic for my first year of the makeup and hair course was exploring gothic horror, I was a little worried as the topic was quite an in depth one, I was paranoid about missing any significant information from blog. The workload compared to the lack of time we had I also found a little daunting. My first character which I created was Quentin the human puppet, the design was shot on location in a cabin under yellow lighting, I was very happy with the character styling, however I noticed when shooting the look under a white light on he camera some flaws started to appear, for example the cuts on the hands appeared a little discoloured to in comparison to my models skin tone, I did edit this on photoshop and noted the problem which occurred on my blog.

 

The next character which I created was Mrs Laderman I was really disappointed with the outcome of my first design, in terms of the makeup and the character styling, the costume did not relate to my chosen TV series and the makeup appeared messy in terms of the linework, this look I therefore decided t reshoot in the studio another time.

 

Digital image

the lowest point of my study I felt was the digital image aspect of the course, I firstly really struggled with using a camera which I did improve on during my next topic and then I began to struggle with the use of photoshop and the use of illustrator to create a logo. Applying the products to my final design without them not looking as if they were copied and pasted was one of my weakest points and also creating a logo after spending 6 hours creating a logo using illustrator I was told by another lecturer a different method on how to create a logo , I found this really confusing and distressing , however I managed to complete my work before the deadline which was overwhelming.

 

contextual studies

writing an essay for contextual studies was slightly out of my comfort zone, something which was a major weakness was building up my word count with too much detail rather than with relevant information, I felt I managed my time well but really struggle with the word count on my essay .

 

After assessing the highs and the lows throughout my journey I can see what skills I  have improved on throughout the year and what skills I will also need to focus on next year in order to become more confident.