Conclusions

Over the past year I have learnt a lot about myself in regards to work ethic, my abilities and also personal interests. Moving forwards into my second year I hope to develop this further so that I can fully establish my style as an artist but also discover what other niches within the industry are open to me. I know now that through my lack of confidence in the first year I passed up a lot of opportunities, this is an attitude that I changed within the second half of the year and will continue to push forward. It was only once I opened myself up and had some belief in myself that I really began to find my feet. I still need to work on my time management in regards to balancing my life a little better, but now with a part time job I will have to find that structure which is a good thing as it prevents me from becoming to fixated on the work at hand. 

Throughout the summer I made sure to keep up the practice and worked a couple of weddings and proms over the period. Weddings are a rather stressful experience and you do get the feeling that the brides whole emotional balance is held in your ability to make them look perfect. A lot of responsibility to put into my (still fairly unqualified) hands. Regardless they helped me improve my speed at applying makeup but also the quality of it, practise is an incredibly important factor to keep your skill up as a makeup artist and the summer homework on top makes the prospect of returning to another year of study just that little less daunting. 

Critical Thinking

I think overall I'm doing well on this course as my skills and passion for my studies have continued to develop over time. I think the main element of what has improved within my first year has definitely been my application of makeup, obviously one of the most important skills to learn as a makeup artist. When I first began this course I had no idea just how many makeup brushes there were let alone what they all did, the types of makeup available and how to use them properly. I found the whole prospect rather daunting but now its becoming more natural to me as i continue to learn about both products and the industry. In regards to what can be improved upon I think a little bit of everything, nothings perfect so you have to keep pushing forwards. But from my experiences last year I do feel I still need to have more confidence in myself, this is something that will only come from balancing my time better and practice. Continuity was an element that I defiantly struggled with but that is just a matter of repeating my processes when applying makeup. In addition I always think I can find room to read more, conduct more in depth research of a higher quality because that is where I seem to find my favourite ideas, often in the pages of really old books or critical essays. I find literary criticism is a big aid in creative design so I know I should use that more within my research and design process.

Julian Kynaston sharing
some of my work.

If I could have done my first year differently, how I managed my time and myself would be number one on the list! Although I put a lot of effort into my studies, it was my inability to find balance during my first term that caused me to burn out after the Christmas break. This had a negative effect not only on the amount of work I was producing but also the quality, simply because I was too tired to put that same amount of passion into it. At the time I knew I was letting myself down, which got to me quite a bit and made the situation even worse. Reflecting back on it now, yes I'm still disappointed that I allowed that to happen but it happened. I hit a wall and like I told the first years its okay for everyone to find that point where they struggled. The fact that I got over it and still achieved a fairly good grade at the end proved to myself I'm capable. This year I can safely say I will find the time to keep myself more organised, simple things like taking a lunch break and just doing a little bit of work each night I think will help me keep moving on track. I’ve realised that how ever much effort you put into yourself reflects in the work that you produce. 

Final submission for the end of my 1st year.

In all honesty I would consider the fact that I hit my targets within my first year of study enough of a success on its own, but of corse throughout the year there have been some real high points. The first is probably my two final images that I submitted though out my first and second assignments. The first image is a makeup look that I completed from my partners design, I had never worked to a brief before and the fact that I was able to execute the makeup to a standard that my partner was happy with made me more confident in my ability. Secondly was the fact that the image was then recognised by Illamasqua, thats something that has never happened to me before and really boosted my confidence in my abilities to apply makeup. The second is my own design and was my first real go at creating a character but also male makeup, something which I have found to be incredibly fun as makeup just seems to look so much more interesting on men. The whole concept for the look was something quite disturbing yet artsy, think Tom Hardy’s Bronson clown and you get the idea. The whole aim of the look was to make people uncomfortable and yet for them to be drawn in still, most people who saw the image said they for some reason enjoyed looking at it so as far as I was concerned that was a success. 

Another high point of the year was being part of a team competing in the SolentTV 48 hour film competition whereby we had to produce a short film based around a selection fo key words and themes. This was slightly daunting for me at first because continuity wasn't my strong point within the second year but I still gave it a good go. I found the whole thing a lot of fun and in the end the team came away the winners of the competition and the film was even featured in the Independent Film tent at Glastonbury music festival this summer. The fact that I am able to put my name as a makeup artist towards something successful such as this was a really amazing thing to walk away with at the end of my first year at Solent. 
"The comedy element of the film was created through the main character 'Jamie' who is a hopeless mess at being an urban cyclist and therefore a fair amount of simple special effects makeup was required. This consisted of nose bleeds, grazes and a black eye that were all results of numerous accidents throughout the film. As I was working on the go I was unable to use any complex products to create elements such as the cuts and grazes and therefore had to rely on my more artistic skills to produce the illusion of wounds. Despite this I feel that I did a sufficient job at creating the injuries and was particularly pleased with how my black eye turned out which was meant to be rather fresh looking with an onset of bruising. From doing the film it proved to myself that I am capable of creating special effects makeup despite how I struggled in my technical classes, by completing the film it boosted my confidence in my professional skills and has made me more open to attempting projects that are outside my comfort zone."

Reflection - Attitudes & Actions

Although I don't think that I have necessarily changed over the past year, I do feel that I am finally finding myself as an adult and carving a path towards my career. University has definitely been the defining factor in all of this. I will admit that starting at Solent was single handedly the scariest thing I have ever done, unlike most students I opted to move into a private flat as opposed to halls, which in turn meant I knew no one upon my arrival. Not being a very confident person I found it difficult to put myself out there and for the first semester spent a lot of my time studying alone. I’m aware this makes me sound slightly like a hermit, but I was comfortable with this as it meant I had time to focus on practicing my technique and completing the work that had been set. I spent a lot of time in the library during the first semester and defiantly became fixated on achieved as close to 100% on all my assignments as was possible. Although this may sound like the ideal goal for a student, my obsessive attitude did throw up a few problems for me. 

It was predominately due to this obsession with achievement during my first semester that taught me my biggest lesson by the time i began my second. It brought about a big wake up call in regards to my attitude towards my studies. Its okay to not get it perfect and you have to look after yourself! The constant stress I put upon myself between September and Christmas meant that upon my return to studies in the second semester I was completely burnt out and found it very difficult to get back into the swing of things, so to speak. I found myself struggling with staying on top of the work, juggling extra assignments and eventually found myself feeling rather under the weather to the point staying awake became an issue. This is something I wont be putting myself through again because the most important part of study is the balance between work and yourself. Dedicating 101% of my time to assignments wasn't healthy but i think an 80/20 balance will be much better, for my health and my work as the more stress I put upon myself, the more the quality of my work began to suffer. 

When reflecting back through my work this is something I can notice within the design stage of my final images, although the work is present the passion is visibly missing. I can see my exhaustion through the lack of detail and thought put into a few of my designs and the research seems somewhat less exciting towards the end of my posts. This is when another attitude change came to my attention, I found myself seeking the help of my lecturers and course leaders more because I could not see past my struggling. Admitting I needed help and things were not going well was a huge weight of my shoulders and I found I was then able to get back to producing my work. In addition to this was finding someone within my class that could pull me away for a break every now and then. When I seemed at my most stressed Lily would pull me out for a coffee or lunch to take my mind off of things, or even get me to help her which often brought me an idea in the process. Socialising has never been my best skill throughout my teenage years but this is something I'm seeing improve through University and taking those little personal breaks gave my brain that timeout before it short circuited again. Taking all this into account I can see that the quality of my practical work has improved steadily over the past year. Both my technique in makeup application and design work has come on nicely in comparison to when I first began the course. This is something I am very proud of as I haven’t had any experience with makeup before but from my improvements I can see it is something I am capable of doing. 

Left: Makeup Design 1st semester                         Right Makeup Design 2nd semester

So what have I learnt? 

• Work hard but maintain a balance.
• Nothing’s always perfect.
• Your best work comes through with the help of others. 

Brief Introductions..

Self reflection..  not exactly my strong point. It tends to snowball into a pool of self criticism if I am completely honest with you, but lets have a damn good try at focusing on the positive. Which I feel there is quite a bit for once. 
Lets begin with the niceties. My name is Charlotte Logue, a makeup student from the city of Southampton. I am currently about to undertake my second year of study in Hair and Makeup Design (BA Hons) at Southampton Solent University. A key part of completing your first year at university is the ability to reflect back on what you achieved, combatted and wish to take forward into your second year of study. This is the purpose of this very blog, to enable myself to talk about my experiences of the past year and realise just how much I have accomplished.

The key things I've learnt about myself from this first year is for one I won't die from being pushed out of my comfort zone (and to get used to it), have some confidence in myself and that I am one serious workaholic, but thats okay in moderation! In the words of Steven Tyler "anything that was worth doing was worth overdoing”... just as long as you don't give yourself a complete mental burnout (again).