Term One - The New Elizabethans

Previous to the first term at Solent, my knowledge of the Elizabethan era was restricted to what I had been taught throughout school in History. Therefore my knowledge of the makeup and style throughout that period was restricted. As a result of this I really enjoyed the seminars as well as the practical lessons and learning so much new information providing me with an insight into how life was for elizabethans and the extremes they went too to achieve the perfect hair and makeup looks.

Throughout this unit I really enjoyed experimenting with different hair and makeup styles until finding which designs I wanted for my final piece. 

The biggest problem I had with my own designs was the hairstyle. My hair was very long so to try and create the rounded look at the back of the hair at the bottom and make sure it was secure took a lot of practise outside of class, eventually we found a way to secure the hair in the correct style so it looked effective. My makeup look was pretty straightforward and basic so there were no issues there after we'd practised a few times.

My partners hair design was also quite complicated, so again took a lot of practise in order to achieve the desired affect. The makeup took a bit more practise as it included a lot of bright colours which had to be blended. This took me a while to get to grips with as blending is not one of my strongest points. 

Over the summer this was something that I tried to practise on friends and family and fell that it has improved slightly, therefore for the second year I want to continue to develop this skill to a higher standard as I feel that will improve my confidence to branch out to more extreme makeup looks that will show my skills of to a better standard.

Technical Skills

Previous to starting my degree at Solent I had limited experience studying make-up. I had completed two evening courses at The London School of Make-up, one in basic make-up training and the other in special effects makeup. I enjoyed both these courses which is what confirmed my choice of degree for me. However due to the lack of practical experience it meant it was a whole new world when it came to learning all the practical skills throughout my first year on the course.
However learning about health and safety, hygiene when applying make-up, how to match foundations to skin tones, blend, contour/highlight, create different lip and eye make-up styles etc. was all very interesting and a lot of fun.
My favourite part of the technical skills we learnt last year was the theatrical and special effects techniques, for example theatrical ageing; it was amazing to see how effective it was to use makeup to make a person look completely different and decades older! In addition to this I loved learning about how to create cuts and grazes using makeup and special effects equipment, as i was considering choosing the special effects unit as my option for this year it was really beneficial to see what kind of things we would be doing, that part of technical skills confirmed and made me a lot more excited to start the special effects unit this year.
Throughout this year my targets are to perfect some of the technical skills I feel I struggled with last year, such as contouring and smoky eyes. I would like to develop my blending skills as I feel this would benefit me greatly in accomplishing these technical skills.

Contextual Studies - The History of Make Up and Fashion

This was the part of the first year I thought I was going to struggle with the most as I don't feel I have very good writing skills, so I was very worried about producing an essay to university standard, however I was pleasantly surprised.

Throughout the term we had a number of lectures where we were presented with the history of makeup throughout time. During these lectures I made a huge amount of notes which was very useful for gaining knowledge and information that I could then apply to my essay.

Whilst these were taking place we also had small seminars where our tutor helped us practise our writing skills and how to layout our essay. We were also presented with 8 general statements, of which we had to choose one and turn it in to a more specific question that was specific to our essay.

In the end my final question for my essay was "How have various icons and influences, within the media, affected what is considered fashionable and beautiful, in regards to body image, across society over the years?" I chose to do an essay based around body image as being in a younger generation I, myself feel a huge strain from what society perceives as beautiful, therefore making it something that I could put a lot of passion in to, in the hope of producing a great essay.

As I knew I struggled a lot with writing essays I decided to plan it out well in advanced so I could adapt and add in any new research or ideas I had over time, as well as enabling me to draft up an essay and constantly re-draft and improve it so the final hand-in was the best of my ability.

(Image Below: Final Essay Plan)

I found that once I had planned out all the aspects of my essay and I started writing it, the points just flowed out, to the point where I had to spend a number of hours cutting the final essay down to fit within the boundaries of the word count. Researching and writing the essay was actually really enjoyable for me and I was very proud of the end result, which included a word count of 2081 and 12 images. However something I struggled with massively was referencing, which was something that was commented on in my feedback. I have never had to use Harvard referencing and I found it very confusing trying to fulfil all the elements it involves, however I gave it my best shot. That was really the only negative feedback I got from my essay, the other comments praised how powerful and strong the points in the essay came across, that was a great achievement for me and exactly the kind of response I wanted to evoke with my writing.

I did end up submitting the essay to the wrong link so eventually I had to hand it in as a late submission which was very upsetting considering the amount of work I had put in to it and how proud I was of it. I'm not entirely sure if or how it affected the grade I received but I still ended up gaining a great mark which I was very pleased with.

Over the next couple of years of my degree I am going to have to really focus on understanding how to referencing in order to accomplish it successfully, in order to this I am going to revise over the conditions of Harvard referencing and if needed, speak to my tutor in order to help me understand properly to avoid making the same mistake as I did the first year.

(Images Below: Final Essay Submission)

Digital Image

Before my first year at university I had no experience in digital imagery whatsoever so this was a completely new topic for me. During the first term the focus for this part of the course was to create monochromatic images (using shades of only one colour). Once we selected the colour we wished to use we were asked to collect images which portrayed the mood, style and inspiration for the piece and present them to the group.
Once this was accomplished we then moved on to creating the mood board that was to be part of the final hand-in. This is when we began our IT lessons for digital imagery, where we learnt how to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator in order to create professional mood boards and edited images.
Whilst this was taking place we also had practical lessons for digital imagery in a photography studio, where we learnt about different lighting, camera settings as well as training in health and safety regulations for the various equipment used in photo shoots.

I felt like I had a firm understanding of the requirements and specifications for the final images we had to hand in and completed the tasks required by my tutor to a high standard each week, so felt like I did not struggle with this area of Digital imagery, I was intrigued by the new information I was gaining about the fashion industry and feel that since learning this it has made me much more aware of fashion surrounding me such as the different colour schemes used and the moods they are trying to create.

When it came to conducting the photo shoot I used myself as the model but collaborated with another student who is studying Film and TV at Solent to be the photographer. I specified what it was that I wanted from the shoot and set everything up myself so I still gained the experience I needed working with the equipment. The biggest struggle for me with the practical photo shoot was remembering all the specific camera settings that helped to produce a good quality photo. I did have it all written down in a technical file but I wanted to be able to memorise the different elements to increase my knowledge, which I feel I eventually accomplished with a lot of revising. Once the photo shoot was completed I was pleased with the selection of photos I had and was glad that I took a large amount of different shots that I could play around with in post-production to achieve the best possible result.

Post-production was the biggest challenge for me in this part of the course as I had no experience in using editing software to perfect an image. I managed to get the hang of cropping images quite easily but a lot of the other tools, such as changing the quality, felt quite complicated to me, luckily my tutor put all his presentations online so I could easily access and follow them when completing my work.
However that is not something I want to have to rely on as I am aware that will not always be the case so this is something I need a lot of practise on in order to be able to edit images independently throughout the rest of my degree. In order to achieve this I have downloaded all the software on to my laptop so I am able to practise outside of being at university. As a result of doing that over the summer with various images from the internet I feel my skills have developed a lot more and now feel a bit more confident with post-production.

Overall I was very pleased with my final hand-in for the first term of digital imagery as for someone with no previous experience I feel I accepted and overcame a lot of challenges and confusion in order to produce work that was of a high-standard.

At the end of this unit I was granted a mark of 58 for my portfolio and 58 for my final images which is equivalent to a high C1 which I was satisfied with (see final images below, left to right: final 3/4 body shot, final head shot, final mood board).

    

An Introduction

My name is Aine O'Grady, I am 19 years old and have recently completed the first year of my BA (Hons) degree in Make up & Hair design. 

During my first year of university I was introduced to blogging and found it extremely helpful in both documenting and assessing my work. By documenting all I learnt and achieved throughout the first year I was able to see how much I have improved since the beginning of the course and what areas have not improved as much.

Therefore this blog is going to act as a reflection on my first year at Solent, mainly focusing on what I enjoyed, what I struggled with, the things I did well as well as the aspects I feel need to focus on improving throughout second year.