AOFM Make Up Course - Week Two

My course at the Academy of Freelance Makeup has now finished, but I was so busy throughout that it's only now I can update you with how I got on on week 2!


Week one of the course was basics, week two was advanced, the same theory applied - we had a different make up artist teaching us each day, so we could learn their tips and tricks and see what worked for us. The morning was usually spent chatting with the make up artist about what they do and how they got to where they are, a talk and demo relating to the subject we were learning, and after lunch getting into pairs and working on each other.

On day one we had Barbara B who taught us about the different periods and the make up associated with the eras. She demonstrated a 1920s look, which involved blocking out eyebrows. I decided to do the same look on my partner. Please bare in mind that the natural eyebrows would normally be Photoshopped out of the photo!

Day two's subject was Avant Garde which was taken by Philippe Miletto.  He showed us lots of tricks using make up in ways we had not yet - like using masking tape on the face to create straight lines for eyebrows, blush or just to add crazy colour to the face. We seemed to learn that with avant garde, anything seems to go! Philippe spoke to us about the importance of working to a time scale too - so we were only given 45 minutes to work on our partners, it was great to have to do the make up with a bit of pressure! I decided that I still wanted my make up to look beautiful, so tried out some new techniques which Phillipe had demoed to us, and these are the two looks I produced.

Maria Papadopoulou, one of AOFM's resident teachers took us for day three, where we learned about male grooming, working with different ethinicities, and mature skin. She demoed some different looks to us, but when it came to us working, she wanted to see if we could work to a brief so put 16 different briefs into a hat, which we each had to pick from. We then had 45 minutes to create our look! The piece of paper I picked out said on it 'a black eyeliner in gel that comes out of the outer corners of the eyes as a straight line.' I used the masking tape technique taught by Phillipe the day before to ensure my lines were straight. Whatever our item was had to be the main focus of the face. The light was terrible so you can't see too clearly in the photo, but I contoured her cheeks to compliment the horizontal lines at her eyes, highlighted the inner corners of her eyes to emphasise the drawn out look, and gave her a nude lipstick so as not to draw attention away from the eyes.

As part of the advanced class you get a shopping day - where you go along with one of the teachers to a few make up shops where discounts have been arranged, to start off our kits. On day four we met up with Breianne Zellinski extra early outside the MAC pro store, where we had a whopping 35% off, after spending a small fortune in there we headed off to Shu Uemera where we had 30% discount, Benefit with 20% off, Bare Ecentuals with 20% off and lastly to Screenface where we got 10% off. Here's a very bad pic of my bounty!

Once we got back we still had to complete a full day of school, so AOFM kindly provided us with lunch at the academy and then we got on with lessons - which was body painting with Carolyn Roper. It was a really fun lesson, but I found it a bit strange being put in the middle of our make up syllabus, nevertheless, we were all fairly frazzled so were glad to have a lesson where we could have a play!

Firstly we were told to do anything we liked, to get used to playing with the paints. OMG white paint is so so so hard to work with! I regretted starting with it, it's horrible!

Next we had a demo on how to do clothes - we were shown how to do buttons and stitching and how to make the clothes look like they had movement in them through light and shadows. Here is my attempt. I was rather pleased with my buttons and flower!

Next I tried a chain with some shading to look like it was coming away from the arm.

Day Five was Textures - which was taught by another AOFM resident teacher, Cristina Iravedra - she showed us an amazing eye make up demo using greasepaints and crystals.

Unfortunately the photo of my partner didn't come out well, but we had to create something using greasepaints, glitter, crystals annnnnnnd feathers! Luckily my partner was going to a masquerade party that night, so I created a little mask for her!

That weekend we had a photoshoot in which we had to create a beauty look, and editorial look - we had a hair stylist, stylist and photographer.... It was nerve-wracking but I loved it once it was happening! I will show you those pics once I get them back from the photographer.

Stay tuned for week 3!