Beautiful You

When I first started using make-up, I was a junior in high school and I was pretty rough at it. I would watch Youtube videos to learn how to do certain looks, but it would only look good if I followed the exact steps. I started to grow a bigger obsession with make-up this past year. It's fun trying out different looks and looking your best. I started loving make-up when I got better at it from all the practice I had over the weekends when I went out. I never saw make-up as an art until I took an art class the second half of junior year and I started to realize the connection. Blending different colors to create a desired look, highlighting high points of the face like the cheekbone and nose bridge to enhance them, and contouring certain areas like the hallows of the cheek and jawline to define them. Just like art, there are techniques on how to apply make-up in order for it to come out right. If you use too much pigment, it may come out blotchy and unnatural.
No one wants to look like this.

When I was younger, I always went to different types of art classes like watercolor, portrait drawing, and ceramics. Of course in high school, I stopped attending those classes and it wasn't until junior year of high school when I took art class to fulfill a requirement. I remember having a teacher that retired after a week class started and got a new teacher that was teaching for the first time. She was nervous at first, which was expected, but after a few classes, she got the hang out it. Everyone found her annoying, but I thought she was great teacher and she definitely did help me improve. A couple of my projects ended up in a couple art shows that i was able to skip the day of school for. It's a good feeling knowing the teacher likes your art. My favorite project was the pointillism project which is basically a painting technique where you make a painting out of dots. I made a landscape portrait of a farm with a sunset in the back. This project taught me a lot about mixing colors to make illusions and adding colors that would create a more realistic painting. Another one of my favorite projects was the portrait drawing where we had to look in the mirror while trying to draw ourselves. It was pretty hard, but I learned a lot about shading techniques that make the portrait realistic. The use of different colors was important for the skin and hair because they are never just one color. Like for the skin, I had to use a tint of blue, beige, yelllow and brown in certain areas of the face.
                                             An example of a pointillism painting:

An example of Portrait Drawing:

Make-up can completely transform a person's look when it is applied right. Before this year, I was always self-conscious about people seeing my no make-up face. I was afraid of people judging me but I realized it wasn't right to hate on my natural self. I started wearing no-makeup out to get over my low self-esteem. It wasn't easy because I had a face full of acne. I was relying on makeup to cover my flaws and I hated it. But over time, I started to accept myself for who I am and having support from my friends and family was a plus. Now, I just wear make-up for fun whenever I feel like dressing up for the day or whenever I go out at night. No one should ever feel ashamed of what they naturally look like. Each and every person is beautiful.