Contemporary Elizabethan Design Review.

Timed Assessment Review – Rebbeca’s Contemporary Elizabethan design

Designer – Rebbeca Southerden

Artist – Matida Salmon

Today I completed my timed assessment for our Contemporary Elizabethan make-up exam. I was the make-up artist for my partner’s design this week and she is going to create my designed look next week. Prior to our timed assessment me and my partner decided to come into the make-up studios earlier this morning, in order to fit in some extra practice time before the final exam.

When we arrived at the studio, I set up my station professionally and began to organize my products and tools I was going to use for my partners design. My partner provided me with some orange false eye-lashes, gold glitter liquid eyeliner and red lipstick she wanted in her make-up look. Before starting to practice I stuck my instructions and partners design to the vanity mirror and we both went through her instructions one last time as she edited her look one last time before the assessment. After practicing the design, both myself and my partner where both happy and confident. I feel that during the timed assessment I wasn’t worried or anxious about completing the look perfectly or in time as, I had practiced and been invested in my partners design and vision.

Something I feel I did well was, sticking to my partners design and also using the techniques she suggested to create her desired effects such as, creating a variation of pinks, reds, purples and oranges with shadows in a brush stroke blended finish. I also feel that I had good time management, because in practice sessions and the final timed assessment I completed the design on my partner within the time we were given successfully. Towards the end of the assessment I accidentally interfered with the finished lips I had created, as I decided to clean them up around the edges so that they would look clean in the photographs.Because of this I made it difficult for myself as the rest of the free time I had left was spent on correcting the mistake I had made within limited time. I felt very disappointed that I had made such a silly and avoidable mistake and felt very frustrated yet, Sue reminded me that this is something I shall learn from and work on so it can be avoided in the future.

If I was to recreate this lip look I would use less product and mainly my fingers instead of just the brushes I used to blend and apply the lipstick. Because I used skin base to create my partners Elizabethan base it was difficult for me to remove the smudged lipstick without it mixing into the white base and turning pink. Instead of using brushes to clean around the lips I feel that I should have used small cotton buds instead as they would have been much more flexible and practical to use in small areas around the lips. 

When reflecting on the time I had to practice my partners look, I feel that it was a reasonable amount of time to practice and get used to her design. I actively practiced the look on myself and my partner outside of studio sessions and I always made sure to communicate with partner making sure she was pleased with what tools, techniques and colors I used for the look. Although I agree that I had enough practice it makes it even more frustrating when reflecting on the avoidable mistake I’d made as I had never had problems within practice sessions.  I really enjoyed my partners final contemporary design and I think it beautifully fitted her hair texture and style as she has red dreadlocks. She created a very artistic and unique look that combined bright variations of color, gold glitter and a traditional Elizabethan base all into one making a bold, eccentric, modern Elizabethan.



Below are the images of the final makeup look I created following my partners design.

Skin Type - Combination

Contraindications- None 

Products used - 

Collection gold liquid eyeliner

Illamasqua white base

Illamasqua translucent setting powder

Cryogen Vbrights eyeshadow palette

Illamasqua Liquid metals palette 

Orange Fake eyelashes 

Collection Red lipstick