Every Make Up Artist Should Take An Acrylic Painting & Drawing Class

Makeup Artistry, is just that. ART! The better you are at painting, the better Makeup Artist you will be.

**The above images represent 3 different Artists work of which are not my own but to use as examples in sculpture, drawing, and painting. **
Makeup Artists, Body Artists as well as Fine Artists utilize most of the same brushes in their everyday work. So it would be hard to believe that if you are good at one discipline, you wouldn't be good at the other. The truth is, to really master either profession it would be useful to take classes in all. Why? Because although the ingredients of the products are different, the product purposes are the same. Let me break it down the differences in how each discipline approaches application methods.

FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS ARTICLE WE ARE GOING TO FOCUS ON GLAM & EVERYDAY CLASSY MAKEUP & HYPER-REALISM PAINTING & DRAWING.

1. You set a background

• Makeup Artists use foundation to blend and contour the face to even the differing tones in a persons natural skin tone.
• Body Artists set a background in which to shape the person's face/arms/legs into something. I.e setting the tone. They start at the persons head, core, or hands (depending if they are full body painting or just a hand/foot/head/back/or tummy painting). Generally the rule of thumb when drawing and sometimes painting is that you start from the centre of the canvass, and work your way out. that way you can control the composition of the painting.
• Fine Artists create a background using one or more colors to apply the same principles as Body Artists, but unlike body and makeup artists, they have a flat canvass to work on. Trained Fine Artists however, have the ability to take their painting knowledge and apply it to painting on various objects and materials such as building walls, wood, metal, and more!

There is literally no difference other than the canvass the paint or makeup is being applied too. If the background is done correctly, it should bring your yes to the "focal" piece of the painting. For Makeup Artists they may want to highlight the person's eyes or their mouth. If they add to much detail to all parts of the face, it will wash out the focal point, and just look like a blurred/ abstract image.

Whether it is face, body, or fine artistry, the one principle remains the same: To have an even image that makes sense, you must have good composition control.

2. You begin to contour the background by blending with a few different brushes

• Makeup Artists tend to work from the inside of the face to the outside, just like Fine Artists and Body Artists do. To contour correctly one must have an understanding of what colors bring certain features forward, and what other colors bring parts of the image on the canvass back. For example: If a persons nose is to large you would want to shade the dominate parts of the nose with a darker color to push it back, and the middle of the nose with a lighter color to bring it forward. basically you are outlining the face/ or setting the stage for the final lines/ details to finish the face and make it pop! Makeup artists generally have about the same amount of time to render a final image as body artists do, but they need to take into account the style of fashion the client will be wearing, and where the client will be traveling too.
• Body Artists have to understand how to blend colors correctly the first time with the right brushes, stencils, and sponges, as if they add too much paint it will crack on the persons body, and will not render the same bold sharp lines. The biggest difference in contouring with body art and painting on a stapled canvass is that painting on a canvass involves several layers which a person can ultimately work on for years, and even paint over any errors they make. Body Art involved alot more control as you have less time to paint the image you desire, and just like applying a tattoo, to make the image stand out in a way for the audience to understand it it can not be to abstract. an artist can put an abstract image onto the persons body, but the entire body can not be abstract, otherwise the body artist has failed in rendering. Body Artists can be photographed in front of a background, into a background, or at an event. Just like makeup artistry, the image is temporary, and not permanent. The audience will only be looking at the image for a short amount of time, so it must look perfect, and understandable to the audience at first glance.
• Fine Artists understand that in the hyper-realism art form, an image must be broken down into very tiny details. that means every brush stroke, and amount of pressure you apply to the canvass through the brush can make, or break your painting. A great piece can take hundreds, and thousands of calculated brush strokes, and tons of different shades of 1 color to render one small piece of the painting correctly. Yes there are specialty brushes, sponges and techniques that can hurry the process along (especially in acrylic), but a hyper-realist artist is a designer. They know what they want the final image to look like, and break down the painting into steps and sections. 

3. You apply the final details

• ​Makeup Artists will now apply the eyelashes, lip gloss/ or lipstick, rhinestones (if applicable), a bit of blush, and line the eyebrows and eyes. This is when everything can go all right, or all wrong. It is like icing a cake. Now your eyes are drawn to the final brush strokes that complete the image.
• Body Artists do the same as the makeup artist.
• Fine Artists can literally ruin an entire piece if their lines are to thin or to thick, as the shading (the foundation/contouring/ and background) has been set. The principle of "less is more" applies very heavily in this moment.

To be a great painter, you must have a solid skill set in drawing. Although paint doesn't blend and apply to a canvass in the same way that sharpies, pastels, and pencils do, art is a series of shapes, lines, and colors put together strategically to create hyper-realism art. A great makeup artist has mastered the ability to control shapes to enhance a person's natural beauty. A fine artist must take a subject (a person, animal, or building), and render it in a way that brings it to life starting from a "blank canvass".

Being a fine artist takes a great deal of patience and discipline. I have been drawing since I was a little kid. As a child I wrote and illustrated my own children's books, and my own comic book series. I then took an interest in design and animation and starting creating the things I saw in my mind out of clay, wood, fabric paper, and boards. From creating stuffed animals to my own Halloween costumes it took off from there. As a teen I started drawing tattoos, as I wanted that to be my career when I graduated. As an adult I ended up being a Caricaturist and temporarily tattoo artist for events. I only started to paint about 7 years ago, and it wasen't until I started doing body art, and creating my own costumes for my productions that my painting skills got a lot better. 

In conclusion, if you want to expand your portfolio as a makeup artist, and work in the professional film/ theatre/tv (production) industry then I recommend you take body art and painting classes. It will sharpen your skills, and make you an invaluable asset.