Eskimo Girl

Since I started Art of Makeup, a school that teaches makeup application for every media including fashion, editorial, bridal, film and television, stage, airbrush and special effects, I have met all kinds of people from all backgrounds and an assortment of locations. People have emailed me from Qatar, Lebanon, England, Italy, and various other states, looking for help on their road to being a successful makeup artist.  One of these future makeup artists called me from Alaska. Although born in Portland, she lived in Anchorage near her Eskimo mother.  I don't think I've ever met an Eskimo before, or even someone who's half Eskimo, such as Camille Milroy.

Camille wasn't the only one excited about her future education in makeup artistry. Because Anchorage is another booming production city in the Pacific Northwest, Camille's local Eskimo tribe called Inupiat, felt it would be a worthwhile contribution to grant her a scholarship to attend Art of Makeup, so she could start her career in Alaska's film production community, supporting this newly thriving industry. She received her scholarship, graduated from Art of Makeup, and made her way back to Alaska to pursue her dream. However, sometimes dreams take a turn. She is spending her time now working on national ad campaigns for brands such as American Eagle, Chevy, Carhartt and more!

I'm excited to not only help my local community in its own booming media production industry by providing more skilled and educated talent, but I love that I'm reaching out to other parts of the world!

Backstage for Ballet Makeup

Having grown up doing theater from the age of four all the way into my twenties, I spent a lot of time on the stage.  There is nothing else like it. There is a certain kind of energy before each performance as the actors prepare for the performance, dressing in their costumes and continuing their transformation with theatrical makeup.  You can even smell the makeup in the dressing rooms. It's theater makeup. It's thick, it's dramatic, and it's painted on. New faces are created with this makeup.  And unlike film and TV, once the play has started, there's no turning back. There needs to be a cohesiveness with the crew and the actors to make the production flow through the entire show without being able to call, "Cut!" and shooting another take. With this team work comes a kind of theater family, and that is what I remember, and that is what I miss.

Gnome makeup to be applied on the children dancers

Since I started my school, Art of Makeup, it has been fun for me to teach theater makeup to my students, but it never occurred to me that I would be working in the theater again.  With great fortune, one of my student graduates, Brittany Nowers, connected me to Sara Beukers, makeup artist for the Oregon Ballet Theater, and she has invited my students to do makeup for the upcoming performance of Swan Lake as well as future performances. Recently, she came into my class and taught the 3 looks they will be doing. I was absolutely thrilled to have her, and of course I couldn't resist to also get involved. I am so excited for this opportunity for my students, but I am also so excited to be backstage again. I can't wait to smell the makeup!

Makeup Artists...In Front of the Camera!

Having just returned from the International Makeup Artist Tradeshow, I look back at the flurry of crowds, noise, amazing talent, and a tremendous variety of product. I think how IMATS has changed over the years.  I have been attending IMATS for fifteen years now, so I have seen a lot of change.           

The first year I started attending, I thought I my heart might pop right out of my chest. I was so excited to see what was offered in the makeup world, I could barely sit still in each class for fear I might miss out on the next one. I sped around from class to class, vendor to vendor, soaking up as much information as I could with ease and anticipation. There were no crowds. That's right. No crowds. Each class had plenty of empty seats, and each vendor table was easy to reach.  There weren't as many vendors either, and the makeup was predominantly geared for the film and television effects community.  It's a different IMATS today.

Because there's no license yet to become a makeup artist, anyone can come. I love beauty makeup and now there's lots of it at IMATS. It seems that everyone else loves beauty makeup too, and everyone else comes to IMATS as well.  There's literally thousands of people there, and it's a zoo. The last two times I've attended, I've left with a serious headache.  I'm not saying that it's not fun anymore, because there's more product, more talent, more education, but it is seriously more crowded, and the focus has changed. It is not just for makeup artists anymore.

Line for Kandee Johnson inside the building
(the dots in the background are people!)

The one other thing that really left an impression on me was all the internet youtube sensations.  The busiest booths were the ones that had "celebrity" YouTube makeup gurus attached, and people wanted their pictures taken with them.  Things really have turned around.  Yes, many of us makeup artists started out as actors or in a band, but then at some point we decided to wipe off our makeup, get out of the limelight, and hide behind the camera.  When I was leaving IMATS, there was a line of at least 300 people waiting to meet the famed YouTube sensation Kandee Johnson. It snaked from inside the building and winded up and down to outside the building. She wasn't teaching a class. Those people would only get to say hi and take a picture.  You can see her blog about it at www.kandeej.com. Well, IMATS made one thing pretty clear, being a makeup artist is no longer behind the scenes.  I thought I was done being in front of the camera in my twenties. Am I ready to put on my makeup and pose for the camera again? Yikes!

Line for Kandee Johnson from outside the building

Easy come...easy go...

Carly Rae Jepsen won the Canadian Idol and hit the #1 US Billboard Charts with her hit song "Call Me Maybe" along with the #1 spot in 20 other countries around the world. In the last week I got hired to do her hair and makeup two times...and released two times when her Canadian makeup artist was able to pull through with her American working Visa. Come on Carly Rae, Call Me Maybe!!
www.artofmakeup.com

Models, Heartache, and Sauvie Island

    I was on Sauvie Island Tuesday for a creative test photo shoot. I decided I'm in love with Sauvie Island. It's beautiful out there. There's houses that float on the river. For a brief moment I decided I would move there, and then I remembered I had a six year old daughter, we would have no neighbors, and we already love where we live now. Maybe I'll get a summer house on the river where I can spend all day on my boat...when I get a boat.

    Oh yeah...I'm supposed to be working. This cute, bubbly, pretend model couple are blowing bubbles just outside an immaculate airstream trailer when a breeze trails across my face and then...what's that I smell? What's that familiar smell? My stomach turns, not in a eeuuw that smell was bad kind of way, but something just punched me in the gut kind of way. I realize it's the fragrance the male model is wearing on his skin. I know exactly what it is, but I can't remember the name. "What's the name of that scent you are wearing?" I kindly ask.
    "Sandalwood."
    "Oh," my stomach twists again. Why does it have to be sandalwood in all places? Especially in my new favorite place.  Sandalwood was of course what the ex-boyfriend wore that shredded my heart into little tiny fragments and left it up to me to try to figure out how to put it all back together again. And I'm not good at puzzles.
    With technology the way that it is, and my masochistic artistic nature the way that it is, I woke up this morning thinking I'd google the smell and take just one more whiff. That's when I realized you can easily take another look or listen and fill your nostalgic needs anytime via internet, but thank God I can't look up the smell.

 www.artofmakeup.com

The Simple Life

   The other day I had a test shoot out on Sauvie Island, the outskirts of Portland where the farms are, where you can pick your own berries in the summertime, swim in the river, and get lost in the corn mazes at Halloween time. It's not even that far of a drive, so I hadn't imagined it would be much different from the city itself. I was wrong.
    When I arrived to the shoot location, I nearly passed the unmarked dirt driveway. Fortunately a truck pulled in at the same time as I did with an unnaturally handsome boy peeking out the window. "Is this where the shoot is?" I asked.
    "Yes," he answered with a dazzling smile. It was pretty evident. I followed his dusty path down the road and parked my car as the beginning of what felt like an oddly voyeuristic day began. He slammed his car door and swiftly strode into the arms of the bikini clad model that awaited him near his truck. They embraced for what seemed to be an enormous amount of time.
   "Hi!" I brightly smiled at the two of them. "Where should I set up?"  The gorgeous specimen of a male pointed to some kind of habitat. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't kept up.

    "You can set up in here," he said. "It's not fancy, but this is where I live."  Wow, I thought. This is new. Ok.
    So that was my first impression. I wasn't too impressed I should say, but things grow on you.  As the day went on, I awkwardly watched this sexy young equally hard bodied couple pretty much makeout with each other, because that was the theme of the shoot, for about four hours straight.  They rode his motorcycle, played along the river and smeared berries on each other. I watched the sun set over the river, and I thought...you know what, if I were young, beautiful, lived on a farm on a river, and had a muscly model boyfriend, I wouldn't mind a bit about living in a tiny trailer with no belongings. Ah, the simple life!

www.artofmakeup.com

Adidas Yoga

Adidas Yoga

Believe it or not, these clothes were about 3 sizes too big and we had to bunch and clip them where you can't see in the shot. I can't believe we somehow made them look like they fit. These girls held these yoga poses for about 4 hours straight. Their legs were burning by the end of the shoot! Actually, well before the end of the shoot...but the shoot must go on!

www.artofmakeup.com