Santigold, art and awesome music

I have meant to write about this forever, but being busy, traveling, working, painting my heart out,
I always forget, but TODAY I do it.
My beautiful talented Santi has come out with a new AMAZING album "Master of My Make-Believe" for which I had pleasure doing her make up for the painting that is behind her.

That was fun day, we played dress up, even I donned some costumes too :). We took series of portraits for the painter, so he has photo reference to work from. Result is stunning!! It was painted by super talented Kehinde Wiley.
Being painting enthusiast myself, this was my dream project. Here are some behind the scenes photos.

 This ended up being final outfit that was used in the painting, and it was my fave!

 As you can see we had true costume party and it was lots of fun. I kept Santi's make up pretty natural and simple, she has most beautiful skin, so no heavy coverage needed for this lady.

 And the final pose! Ready to be painted

Being the part of this project was truly exciting, and I am always excited and happy when I work with Santi. 
Few months ago, I did her make up for music video, which I will post as it comes out.
In the meanwhile check out her new album! She is truly fascinating, beautiful and inspiring artist to work with. I feel privileged. I LOVE my job!!

Snow White and the Huntsman by Benefit Cosmetics

When I first saw the trailer for the movie "Snow White and the Huntsman" and Charlize just dissolved into the cluster of crows my heart skipped the beat.
Visuals of that movie make me little paranoid that someone is spying on me and knows what is in my head EXACTLY!!
Needless to say, I can't wait to feast my eyes on that visual buffet, but in the meanwhile, imagine my delight when my beloved Benefit came out with special edition make up bag to celebrate the film.
Take a look at this baby

 It was made for me! Its purple, it has silhouettes of tiny little fairies and I am not parting with it.

Inside it holds my fave matte cream POREfessional, Bad gal lash, Benefit classic BENEtint and illuminiting moon beam. All aready part of my kit but now with most gorge bag to hold them in!
This rare beauty can be found in Sephora!

My not so secret life

As some of you know, besides being in love with my job as a make up artist, I lead double life as a painter.
When I started I could only do paintings based on photographs, but my wish to create original art has come trough a while ago with "Alice in Wonderland" painting.
Recently I took my love for painting even further and discovered new medium (to me, I only worked in oils prior to this).
Enter Watercolor. I love it's flowing nature, it gives me ability to let go and allow paint to guide me.

I am so happy with final outcome, and feel as finally things that have been locked inside of me are coming to life.
Yesterday I had my first sale in Etay where I sell giclee prints of my artwork. Feeling of accomplishment and pride was incredible.
I love the feeling that someone liked my work so much to buy it and that fraction of my soul will be part of their story now.
Priceless

Pretty Little Liars: Troian Bellisario for Good Morning America

This is my second time to have privilege to do makeup for beautiful young actress Troian Bellisario.
Yesterday we visited Good Morning America set, where Troian and her castmates discussed season finale of Pretty little liars.
It was fun seeing young fans adoration and grace in which Troian and the girls showed to them.
She is beauty inside out!

I have used mostly neutral palette of warm browns to give Troian soft smokey eyes and highlighted her skin with illuminizer to give her nice glow.
Afterwards, for ABC Upfront event Troian was attending, I have added little bit of loose gold/pink shimmer on the center of the eye, to warm up the make up, since she was wearing neutral assemble.
In both instances I kept her lips neutral color.
What a fun day!

Beauty fundamentals: Foundation

As some of you know, I really obsess over foundation and correct matching. One thing I hate seeing is floaty head (mismatched foundation).

Brides magazine has asked me to re-create some of my techniques for them. So here it is, step by step on foundation rules.
Hope you like and feel free to ask questions in comment section.
xoxo
V.

Beauty breakdown: Elle STYLE360 Theia F/W 2012

Cherry on the top! I finish beauty breakdowns from F/W 2012 with the show that is very close to my heart.
I love my job, I am grateful for every opportunity, every exciting moment I receive,  as they shape me profoundly to who I am as an artist, as well as a person.
There are few moments in my career however, that will be permanently etched in my memory as incredible out of the body experiences. This show is one of those moments.

I can say, for the rest of my time, that this was the show that made me dissolve into river of tears and I am proud to say it.

There are so many elements to reason why and I will get to them, but sheer talent and craftsmanship of the design, made by hands of truly truly beautiful soul, Theia designer Don O'Neill is most important one.

 I have written about people like him before in my posts The Messengers and Cover that started it all.
People whose messages leave me breathless and inspires me to create and keep communicating to the universe.
Beauty of his art work is truly complemented by who this man is as a person.
From the moment I met him he (and his partner Pascal) permeated by warmth and love that is sometimes lacking in our industry.

No matter how hectic it got, no matter how many people had opinion around him, no matter the fact that this is the most important show of his life, his very first, this man wore grace and kindness like most beautiful crown.
That is why, his success, his talent and beauty he creates is extra special. Because it is happening to truly good person and it gives you re assurance that you can be successful artist without loosing your beautiful compassionate humanity.

All of you who know me, know how much I love mystical, dark but beautiful esthetic (I secretly call myself Morgana Le Fay for god sake lol), so creating this look was extra special for me.

I was raised reading Greek Mythology, so when Don told us, at our test, that his inspiration comes from Athena, the warrior goddess of wisdom and art, my nerd goth kid got awaken and my ears perked up.

We have created strong eye fitting the warrior goddess, linear and dark. But there was so much feminine grace to the whole collection and I wanted to convey that somehow with make up as well.

That is why after framing models eyes with Drama Queen palette and mixing purple from Tropicana (all by our sponsor Beauti Control) I added special silver cream in the center of their eyelid.
I wanted it to catch the light, play off the elements of design and expose light center of a strong woman, like pulsing heart underneath the warrior's armor.
The look was so beautifully accompanied by amazing shiny tails created by talented Linh Nguyen and his team of hairstylists.

  
We kept the rest of their look fresh and minimal, so nothing competes with the eyes. Shiny highlight was added to their cheeks to shimmer, like water.  Lips were finished by BC lip balm and their whole body was moisturized by BC Ultra Rich Body Moisturizer.


 

 As always, at showtime, I go in front of the runway and position myself with photographers, phone in my hand.
That is how I  communicate with my first assistant back stage, in case something needs to be fixed. Little did I know I was about to be taken to an emotional journey.
Light went down and in the rhythm of the most beautiful music, I saw ghosts of warrior goddesses gliding down the runway wearing designs spun with love and vision of a beautiful man.
As tears streamed down my face, overwhelmed by pride and realization that I am part of this, that I have worked so hard in my own career to be part of such beautiful vision, I felt my hand squeezed hard.
I turned around to see teary face of Don's partner Pascal looking at me and like in some movie moment we hugged each other watching the show and crying together.
When it was over, applause echoed like thunder trough out the venue and people stood up to greet the final line up and designer himself. When the light came on, I saw that my face was not the only face wet with tears.
It is truly one of the moments I will never forget. I witnessed a triumph of hard work and talent that belonged to most deserving of persons. I was there.

TAKE A LOOK AT THE VIDEO OF THE SHOW (make sure your volume is up)

Beauty breakdown: Elle STYLE360 Malan Breton Fantome F/W 2012

Project Runway alum Malan Breton has put together mostly men show that required us to keep boys nicely groomed and fresh. We did however have 3 beautiful girl models join the party, one of them being super cute Alison Harvard from Top model fame.

 Make up and hair inspiration for the show was combination of Belle Du Jour meets Robert Palmer Addicted to love video. Smokey eye and red lips. I wanted to keep it more refined by opting out dong too much color on the cheek and keeping smokey eye more controlled.

I have used darkest colors from Drama Queen Palette by Beauti Control to smoke out models eyes with  more cat eye shape.
Cheeks were contoured by bronzer, I did not want to ad too much color to compete with already strong look.
We gave the girls lady like lips courtesy of Beauti Control new
XOXO Lipsick.
I love the color and we were certainly giving a lot of kisses backstage with it :)

Beauty breakdown: Elle STYLE360 Monopoly by Junk Food F/W 2012

We all know Junk Food as maker of vintage and fun t-shirts. This year they collaborated with different designers (including out fave Staci Igel from Boy meets Girl) to create visual narrative of wealth and trappings of it.
This show required thinking on ones feet, since it had make up and hair change in the mid of the show. More on that as we go along...

This show was delightful mix of models and personalities alike. Young singers, actresses and reality personas walked runway together. Look we came up with was really flattering and fresh on all of them.

 First part of the show was kept minimal, beautiful skin, strong defined brows (with an amazing Beauti Control brow grooming trio), bronzed skin and vibrant orange lips.
To ad extra little glow, I have placed clear BC gloss on the top of their eyelids for extra sparkle, but it also served as segue to second look.

Designers had the idea of transitioning first look by having black smoky eye with glitter on the top of it for the second.
I have already divided my team into black cream crew and glitter crew to be ready to pounce on the models as they changed for the second look.
Since hair change and clothing change is happening at the same time, after observing the rehearsal I knew that it is close to impossible to create beautiful transition with black in such short amount of time (mere seconds) while models is constantly moving in panic of clothing change.
Yes, we could have done it, but it would be sloppy and read like a mistake, I am too vain to send something like that down the runway ha ha ha.
So I came up with "gloss already on the eye" idea right there and then and proposed it to the Junk Food people and they loved it. I know, I know....what brilliant idea ha h aha

So disaster averted, my assistants sighing in relief waited for model change armed with fun gold glitter.
First look was  glossy eye with with nice sharp brow, and then transitioned into rich gold glittery fest that finished the show quite nicely.
We even had Junk Food mascot walking the show (no glitter applied on the pooch), and he had a little diva moment too. It was fun energetic show!