Joccoaa Théato: Blog 3 – Project outcome and personal development reflection
My final piece for my Better Lives classes called “makeup breakdown” is a video montage of my face being painted. Throughout our classes we were tasked with different objectives. The ones that stood out to me were our contouring class and the classes we had over blackboard during the corona virus lockdown. In those classes we were prompted to use unconventional materials for our looks and I immediately knew I wanted to use watercolours. I first heard of watercolours being used as makeup in a book I’d read when I was about 13 and I’d always wondered whether it could be done in real life. It is one of the few materials I have at my disposal. Being in quarantine at my boyfriend’s house I don’t have access to very many of my supplies but the one thing I do have is my paints which I have been using a lot to pass the time.
I wanted to create a montage video of the look being created as an alternative to a makeup tutorial that gives step by step instructions to create a look. I wanted to create a video that looked fun for other people to do to entertain themselves in quarantine.
This piece was meant to embrace the idea of imperfection, letting the “make up” paint me instead of me being in control of where it goes, creating “imperfect” lines. I found that that meant the paint would naturally follow the contours of my face. Once dried, the lines on my face began to move when I talked, showing the natural highs and lows of my face. I found this really interesting as the watercolours had created a natural contour of my face by falling down it.
The corona virus pandemic shifted our classes towards more practical approach for those without accessibility to makeup and tools. I found that I preferred these lessons as it pushed us to think outside the box and use materials that wouldn’t conventionally be used as makeup. It seems that everyone in our class recycled materials to create their looks with items like foil, hair bands and tape. I found it most interesting that the shift in class objective during the corona classes caused our outcomes to suit the Better Lives themes even closer than before. We were all creating more diverse looks, more sustainably with alternative materials.
I think that my makeup breakdown class taught me the very basics of makeup (cleaning procedures, skin care, colour theory) as well as the immense freedom that can be unleashed with the vast possibility of creations.