Saturday, May 30, 2015

Pop Art | Lucy's Magazine with Ten Photos


The "Pop Art" editorial is out today in Lucy's Magazine.

These photos are new to all of you but very, very, VERY old to me; these were taken almost two years ago but they have finally been released to the public today. This is one of the hardest things about working with editorials: the wait is dreadful but to see your work in a new publication makes it all better. Unfortunately I don't remember every single product I used, but I wrote down the few things I could remember below. 

So here is "Pop Art" for your viewing pleasure!



Photographer: Ten Photos

Retoucher: Samantha Hylla

Model: Clara Rae

MUA & Hair: Andrea C. Samuels


For every beauty editorial, I tend to be very hands on and very much a perfectionist with my work. Sometimes I plan out mood boards and sketch a few ideas so I can show the photographer and the team what I plan to do. I decided to try something completely new so I did not sketch or plan these looks out at all. I did find inspiration photos to mimic but I didn't even look at them once I started working with Clara. Deep, deep, down inside my soul I was scared to just let go but it felt liberating to just grab a random color and work with it. Working this way gave me a new appreciation for art. At this time, Clara had a new haircut and was just about to move to New York City, so I fed off her energy and created what I wanted.




For this first look, I played with my NYX Lip Palette in "Sweet Oranges". Although NYX is seen as a 'cheap' product to most people, this palette packs a punch; these oranges are really bright! I wanted the colors to pop and I also wanted to keep it simple by not adding blush or eyeshadow. I absolutely love how this came out and I really love the way Ten Photos experimented with different lighting to highlight her face.




For this second look, I always wanted to try blended colors on a models' face so it looks like a cloud of different shades. I had nothing like this in my portfolio so I just wanted to play and experiment with the colors I had. I think I was working with Ben Nye eyeshadows, Inglot Eyeshadows, and MAC Blushes; I really didn't think it through, I just grabbed a color and went with it.




The one thing I do remember using was this lip tar by OCC in "Anime". I also mixed this with other glosses so her lips looked like glass.


At this time, I remember Clara's face was getting sensitive and I had to slow down on putting too much product on her face. I opted to keep her lips and face clear and clean so I played up her eyes with new products I just bought. I don't use any of my green eyeshadows, so I just used this moment as an excuse to finally use them. I also wanted to play around with colored mascara, so I used my Inglot Gel Liner as mascara on Clara.




On her lips, I used Inglot AMC Gloss in #546


From this shoot, and many other shoots, I learned a little bit more about myself: I learned that I don't have to plan every single thing out, I don't have to be a control freak, I don't have to be a perfectionist. I can just be the artist I was born to be and paint. 

That is my advice to you as well, don't get caught up in thinking 'this has to be perfect' or 'this has to be a certain way', when it comes to art, there is no such thing as 'perfect' or 'a certain way'. When you get the opportunity to work with a model and a photographer and you have free reign to do as you want, just paint and let it go. You might surprise yourself with the things you can create.