Makeup and Hair Seminar - Symbolism and Portraiture.

When creating my own self portraiture look with symbolism I wanted to create a contemporary Elizabethan look that emphasised the forehead and lip area with a white base and then contour heavily with pink blusher and also make my lips overdrawn and black. My aim of this was, I wanted the make-up to be bold but also mimic some of the traditional make-up style that Elizabethan women used to wear. I started off my look by dramatically overdrawing the natural shape of my lip to almost a oval shape, with black Aqua Colour. After this I filled in the rest of my lips with the same colour. I chose black as the lip colour because something I aim to create for my final look for this Elizabethan project is to create a contemporary Elizabethan character to symbolises attitude. Because of this I thought black would be a bold colour to use as it can symbolise the teeth decay women used to suffer from causing their teeth to become black, and instead of hiding it like they did in their portraiture, I would embrace it and celebrate it as they do when they want to symbolise something great like they do in their portraiture, to show off. This means my character could go against traditional beauty methods, embracing the ugly and wearing it with 'Attitude'.

After creating my desired lip shape, I then moved on to create my white base shape. Because I only wanted it in certain areas if my face I started of by applying it on my forehead following the shape of it and then bringing the colour down my nose only. I applied white aqua paint to areas of my face I wanted to emphasise like my forehead because, instead of how Elizabethan women aimed to make their forehead appear larger as it symbolised wiseness, I wanted to just follow the natural shape of my forehead. After filling in the drawn out areas with white I felt like it looked a little incomplete, so I brought the white colour down around my created lip shape also. After piling my white base I started contouring quite heavily with a bright pink colour from my Ben Nye blush palette, I applied this on my cheek bones, cheeks and jawline. I wanted to leave the eyes neutral and also covered my eyebrows with the white Aqua paint. 

After I was happy with my make-up look, I started to create my hairstyle. After looking at the practitioner Hendrick Kerstens photographic works and use of props to create symbolism, I decided I wanted to create a bold head piece that would resemble a tudor head scarf. I used a travel pillow to create the shape of my head piece and then covered the pillow with a pink sarong that had gold detailing. I chose the sarong because the colour for my symbolised femininity and that the gold detailing added a nice touch which could symbolise wealth in my portrait. To finish of my headpiece I added a flower from a perfume bottle I had to symbolise gentleness, and how my character is as delicate as a flowers petals. 

I would say my self portrait and the character I have created is most similar to the artist Frieda Kahlo. 

I say this because Freida Kahlo was a very beautiful and powerful women in her works, she created self portraiture that symbolised her emotional and mental pain but in a incredibly beautiful way. It is said that she found self portraiture simple to create as she was her own subject, meaning she knew best.