Highlights

My favourite project during first year was the New Elizabethans in our first term. Learning all the basic techniques for applying make-up at the beginning was an important way to start the course as these are techniques I will use in every job I ever do and as the basis to build upon more complex and creative techniques and looks throughout my university and professional career. I also enjoyed being taught the hair styling techniques as this is something I struggle with more than the make-up as find incredibly tricky and fiddly, it is not something that comes naturally to me! I feel like these lessons gave me a lot more confidence and I even began enjoying it which I never thought possible. To think back on how much I have improved on hair this year inspires and excites me to keep practising and improving as I can't wait to see what I will be able to do at the end of the next two years. Luckily for me I am living with eight girls who all have such different hair of all styles, lengths and thicknesses so I am spoilt for choice when it comes to models to practise and play around with. 

During the New Elizabethans project I loved working from another designers face and hair charts as it gave us a chance to properly get to know each other and communicate as we had to understand completely what the other wanted us to do, just like if we were to be working at a fashion show or on a character for a movie or theatre production. I was very nervous about creating Sara's hair and make-up look on her as I wanted it to be just right for her. We practised over and over again in our spare time so we could make sure the timing was just right and we knew how long we would need on the day so we could organise some preparation in advance. This all paid of as I was so proud of my final hair and make-up look for this project and was even more thrilled when I was graded A2 for my practical assessments! It goes to show that practise and organisation is key to success as the timed assessments weren't stressful and daunting as I imagined they would be due to everything being set and ready to go straight away.

 
I also really enjoyed the first Digital Image Production brief as it gave us chance to create any look we designed for hair and make-up using only one colour and to photograph the complete look taking a close up and a mid length shot. I enjoyed this as while studying the Elizabethans and designing a look inspired by that time period we were free to do what we wanted with this look as long as it was only made using one colour (Mine was gold) and portrayed a mood across to whoever looks at the photos. The mood part of this brief confused me a bit as it wasn't initially made clear what was meant by this, but nonetheless I still really enjoyed the preparation for this shoot and the actual creating on the day.