“The more educated you are, the more perspective you have with your art” – SARA DOMI
I am beyond excited to have an interview and my work featured with NO NAME MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE to read the entire NO NAME MAGAZINE interview. This article features a never-seen-before addition to my portfolio and my thoughts about makeup, art and perspective. I’d be honored if you checked it out.
Today on MAKEUP MEETS TECH… join me for OOB MAGAZINE – Kiersey Clemons – Part 2. I had an amazing opportunity to work with actress Kiersey Clemons for international publication, OOB MAGAZINE. If you’re not familiar with OOB… familiarize yourself; it’s a Parisian print and web publication here to stay. OOB’s print magazine is one of the few that features beauty, art and fashion in a visual format only. Meaning… It’s a large collection of editorial stories uncluttered with articles. It’s a “read” of imagery and artistic expression.
There is something about seeing fashion and beauty editorial stories in print that can’t be be matched to the clicks of our day. Call me old school; but the act of flipping pages feels like an exciting scavenger hunt that is feeds into my need for visual and kinesthetic stimuli. OOB MAGAZINE reserves written articles for web release only, which is why being published in print by OOB MAGAZINE is so special. I couldn’t be more proud to have my makeup featured in Issue #6 – Beyond Neo Modernism.
Kiersey Clemons, a young actress with contagious energy in front of the camera wowed me with her gorgeous face and work ethic. Remaining expressionless for hours is a true test of constraint. I couldn’t have cast a more perfect model for this editorial. Not only was she able to dial it in during our lengthy makeup applications, but in a snap she came alive when the camera was on her; bringing charisma and youthful charm to my designs. She nailed it in every sense of the word. Thank you Kiersey for your patience and being such a pro!! Had so much fun watching you work.
I couldn’t be more excited to have six pages published of Kiersey and the work of my amazing team. If you haven’t picked up your copy of OOB Issue #6 yet, you can get it here!!
In my last post… OOB Magazine – Constructing Beauty – Part 1, I said I would have a surprise for you. I had the help of an amazing Filmmaker named Rachael Joyce of RJoyceCreative. She captured the shoot on video and edited this fashion film for me. Enjoy!! If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel. I’d really appreciate the love.
PHOTOGRAPHER – BODE HELM
ART DIRECTOR – JABE / OOB MAGAZINE / B AGENCY
MODEL – KIERSEY CLEMONS / EDDIE GALAN – MACH 1 MANAGEMENT / STARR ANDREEFF – MJMG
MAKEUP – SARA DOMI / KIM DAWSON AGENCY
VIDEO – RACHAEL JOYCE / RJOYCECREATIVE
PRODUCER – HOLLY KISSINGER / KISSINGER PRODUCTIONS
RETOUCHER – MARINA DEAN-FRANCIS / MDF RETOUCHING
Jabe, I appreciate this opportunity more than you know and look forward to making art with you in the future. Much love to Fashion Photographer Bode Helm and Producer Holly Kissinger for being my go-to team and making this shoot a reality on such short notice. Special thanks to Marina Dean-Francis at MDF Retouching for your beautiful work on a tight timeline.
As an added bonus, I wanted to release a few unpublished images of Kiersey that I thought you might like to see. They don’t all make the cut, however, still in love with these images.
I invite you to SUBSCRIBE to MAKEUP MEETS TECH for posts that are all things tech. As always… I truly appreciate the likes, pins, shares and tweets. Join me on social for daily posts. If you missed OOB MAGAZINE – Constructing Beauty – Part 1, check it out. It is a tutorial on how I created these look you see here. I encourage comments and questions… we are all here to learn.
Are you a makeup artist who would love to see your work published by an international magazine you respect? I’ve felt that way for a long time. Earlier this year, I traveled to Paris as a finalist for the OOB MAGAZINE and MAKE UP FOR EVER makeup competition. Did I win? No, but I achieved what I set out to do. I decided to enter the global makeup competition after seeing the work that OOB MAGAZINE was publishing. The first time I cracked open OOB Magazine, I thought… “THIS is a magazine that I identify with and I want my work published here.”
Meet my mannequin … Her name is Viola, LOL. When trying new techniques I practice on Viola prior to attempting my ideas on a real face. This step helps me work out all the kinks and nail down my placement and color balance. I’ve posted a couple pics on social of my first attempt at makeup marbling. I have been brainstorming an idea to create an effect that I have yet to see done on the face realistically. I will reveal that technique and concept once I figure it out. I think if I am to successfully execute the technique I hope to get it published…. I’ll keep you guys in the loop for sure. During my process… I always stumble upon many things and this experiment in particular was one of my happy mistakes.
I’m constantly looking to upgrade my body of work and get new images in my book. After this experiment, I realized that this technique could be book worthy and publishable too. I decided to shoot a beauty story using this technique while in LA recently. Though I can’t reveal my final images as of yet; here’s a couple images of my process.
I find YouTube very useful when learning new techniques. I rarely watch beauty tutorials, however, tutorials on painting and drawing are my jam. This technique is called liquid painting and is typically used on canvas. The technique involves dropping liquid paint in various shades to the same location multiple times and allowing gravity to do its thing. The skin is much different than a canvas with its peaks and valleys. Gravity doesn’t behave the same on a face, as it does on a flat surface, obviously.
I began at the top of the forehead in the upper right recession. Black liquid airbrush makeup was dropped onto the face first and was followed with multiple shades and repeated over and over again. The more color you add; the more the paint travels creating the marbled effect. 
During this process I learned that my model must be lying down to have more control over the result. I moved my mannequin’s head from side to side to allow for the paint to move in the direction I wanted my end result to reside. This first snap is a close up of the marbled effect. Viola, as you can see, still had prior experiments on her face and the skin peeking through made me realize that the marbled effect would be much stronger if it didn’t compete with my model’s skin tone. Many of my concepts start with a physical application followed by fine tuning in Photoshop to aid me in visualizing placement and details. This concept was no different. This next image I dragged into Photoshop and selected everything but the marbled effect and her eye. I filled it with black and really liked the way it read. The marbling jumped off the screen when the skin tone was absent and her eye popped.
This last image is the entire face with the Photoshop treatment applied. I found that going through this process gave me an understanding that I needed to paint my model’s face black prior to applying the marbled effect. I also needed to use a black makeup that would not transfer to the liquid marbling and muddy the effect. Once the marbling is applied, I learned that you can’t touch it. The paint looks best when you allow the liquid to take shape on its own. “Let the makeup take shape and NOT touch it?”… a challenge indeed. Another notable find was that the technique reads best sooner than later. The longer the makeup spread, the more the paint mixed together and lost its shape. So be quick if you try this one and have your camera ready to shoot the process.
PRODUCTS:
MAKEUP MARBLING EFFECT – Numerous shades of MUD Cosmetics HD Air
I invite you to SUBSCRIBE to MAKEUP MEETS TECH for posts that are all things tech. As always… I truly appreciate the likes, pins, shares and tweets. Join me on social for daily posts. For a makeup related tech post… check out Graphic MAKEUP Just Got Easier for a breakdown on how to use a die cut machine to create custom makeup appliances. I encourage comments and questions… we are all here to learn.
Hello all. I wanted to take you guys behind the scenes of my Creature of Beauty shoot with photographer Jessica Pages and gorgeous model, Gabrielle Cristyne. I organized this concept for a makeup competition held by MAKE UP FOR EVER and OOB MAGAZINE. We were to use the theme “Creature of Beauty” to guide our concept. Originally, I thought that the contest required three makeup looks capturing this theme. I later learned that the global contest asked for three crops of the same makeup. The good news is… I just found out yesterday that I made the top 20 finalists and have been invited to compete mid March in Paris at the Make Up For Ever headquarters. I’m over the moon with excitement.
Many have asked me how I use my die cut machine to create adhesive vinyl pieces for the face. In this video… it shows the process of me applying the adhesive vinyl piece, cutting it to fit Gabrielle’s face and painting it. What isn’t shown is when the piece was pulled off. I chose a final image that had the piece removed. The makeup left behind I felt looked much more modern than the when the piece remained on the face. Special thanks to Jessica Pages for putting this video together, I LOVE it.
These three images are the crops that I entered for the Creature of Beauty contest that garnered approval into the top 20 finalist list. We were asked to submit one image of the face, neck and shoulders… one of the lips… and one of the eye. Thanks JABE and DANY!!! See you in Paris.
I welcome any and all questions and comments here. Please use this blog as a place to learn. I am an open book. I will teach any and all techniques that I know and try to troubleshoot any cosmetic crisis you have. Don’t hesitate to comment… we are all here to learn. If you haven’t subscribed to my blog yet… I would be honored to have you join me on MAKEUP MEETS TECH. Want more? Check out the full tutorial with all products listed for each look at Blacklight MAKEUP .
I just shot a new beauty editorial using a blacklight. I want to take you through my process on how I conceptualized this story and the techniques and challenges I experienced while working with blacklight makeup. My blacklight makeup series has three looks, however, working with a new photographer friend named Jessica Pages, enabled us to shoot the progression of the looks. She kept shooting and I kept adding paint till we agreed that we had gotten the shot. My lovely model Gabrielle Cristyne, drove down from Dallas to come play with us. I couldn’t be happier with the results. Here’s how I got there…
Have you ever thought…. I wish I knew how to post better photos? Though I feel really comfortable using PHOTOSHOP; a few apps have made their way into my staple tech tools. Last week I ran into a challenge and I thought I would share it with you. I keyed the makeup team for DIFFA DALLAS‘ ad campaign. This campaign is a yearly shoot to promote DIFFA’s fashion show extravaganza. I am not exaggerating…. this show is like nothing you have ever seen. It is truly a spectacle.
DIFFA is an organization that benefits the local community of those living with or effected by HIV and AIDS. How I view the HOUSE OF DIFFA… it is an organization that enables artists like me, to have creative freedom for a cause. I love working with DIFFA because I get to play, and nothing can be too over-the-top. This campaign is very secretive and it is understood that DIFFA should be the first to release any images to the public. That’s when my challenge arrived. I was so excited about the amazing makeup that my team and I created… how could I post images and not give anything away? For the artists reading this… I know you have experienced this. You want to post, but you can’t. For the those of you who aren’t artists… I’m going to show you how to use apps to truly create works of art from a selfie; all done from your smart phone. Let’s begin.
Sitting in my hotel room in Dallas, I started playing with the quick snaps I took on set and in the makeup prep area. These three images are the images I posted to social media. All three images were taken with my iPhone and edited completely on my phone using apps. Links to all apps are under TECH TOOLS at the bottom of the post.
Here’s where the fun begins. You will rarely see me take a selfie, but for the purposes of education I want to show you that even a poorly lit selfie has the potential to be an amazing post.
The next set of images will take you through the simply alterations you can do with your installed photo app. I have an iPhone so these edits are made with iPhoto. You start with a photo. You can see how bad the lighting is. I like the Chrome or Transfer filter. I chose Chrome this time. I bumped the exposure, the black point and highlights.
After saving the last frame, I open FRAGMENT. I upload my saved image and use the various controls to find my desired fragmented edit. TECH TIP… the circle at the top middle of the screen will bounce between editing the image versus the fragment. If you don’t like the style of the fragment, click the two intersecting arrows on the right to get a new style. I have noticed that uploading un-cropped images work best in this app. FRAGMENT takes a little practice, but once you get the hang of it… so worth it. The next series of images are variations I went through before finding the fragment I liked best. Save your work to your camera roll and you’re ready to move on.
SHIFT is really great for altering color, creating inversions and adding style to your photos. I chose this app for my image because I noticed that the lipstick I’m wearing in my selfie is really close in tone to everything else in the photo. I felt it need a little color alteration to add interest. When you open your saved image in the SHIFT app you will see the option to crop your image. I know that I will be posting my photo to INSTAGRAM, so much of the time I will opt for a 1:1 ratio…. which means “square”. SHIFT’s preset filters can be really easy, but for this image, I tapped the color feature located at the middle, bottom of the screen. I opted for the filter named “Antigua”. The filters are the colored boxes. The circles above the colored boxes use a similar language to Photoshop. You can alter the effect of the filter with these circles. I chose “Overlay”. The scale at the bottom alters hue and the scale at the top alters intensity. TECH TIP…. tap the intersecting arrows on your color filter to change the position of your colors. This app is cumulative, so I find that one selection looks better than layers of filters. Click “DONE” and the image will save to your camera roll.
FONT CANDYMany of you may stop there, but for education purposes I want to share with you an app I just found. FONT CANDY is used if you want to add words to your images. You can simply use one font or add multiple fonts to your photo. I opened my saved photo into FONT CANDY to add the final touches. I used three different fonts making it necessary to use three font boxes. Each text box has many options including font, size, character spacing, text curve, etc. Once you have your text the size and orientation you LOVE, click the circle at the top of the screen to alter the text color and mask color. I opted to make the mask color black and decrease the opacity to reveal my final effect. Click the save button in the top right hand corner of the app to save to your camera roll or post directly to INSTAGRAM or FACEBOOK.
I love what is possible with technology!! I have the pleasure of working with some amazing artists on a daily basis. I always hear the same thing… “but I don’t have anything to post”. Never again will you have the excuse that you don’t have a photo to post if you use even a couple techniques I showed you today. Personally, I HAVE to make art… whether I do that on a face or on a screen. Sometimes you’ll find my blog to talk about makeup technique; but how I present that technique is just as important as doing a perfect eyeliner. Here is my final image and I invite you to play with apps to post better photos.
PRODUCTS: LIME CRIME Velvetines in Squash
TECH TOOLS: iPHOTO, FRAGMENT, SHIFT, FONT CANDY
I invite you to SUBSCRIBE to MAKEUP MEETS TECH for posts that are all things tech. As always… I truly appreciate the likes, pins, shares and tweets. Join me on social for daily posts. For a makeup related tech post… check out Skull MAKEUP Tutorial. I encourage comments and questions… we are all here to learn.
