Miss Havisham- Rehearsal Practical

Within this lesson we were to create our final interpretations of our Miss Havisham characters.

My partner (Sandra) wasn’t in the class so I had to use another model, I found this frustrating as my design is based on colourings within the natural skin and enhancing these i.e.- the blues of the veins and I couldn’t practise matching the colours and practising this on Sandra’s skin tone.

I found that within this lesson I began to get frustrated as I had all these ideas in my head about what I wanted to create but couldn’t find a way to pull them all together and place them onto the face. Lottie sat with me and discussed my main inspirations witch we both decided was my interpretation of the colour Platte something I had been interested in from the beginning I also felt the vein blues and yellows represented the delicacy and created a rawness within my own characterisation of Miss Havisham.

Lottie suggested that I should concentrate on this rather than trying to add in all the elements I have been taught such as ageing, cuts, peeling and I found the creation onto the face began to come a lot easier concentrating on one element rather than several.

Lottie helped me recap on placing of the colours onto the face such as:

-Contours- dark colours witch would be my blue tones

-Highlights- light colours my yellow tones

-Blending- in between colours- my green-pinks

I began also creating veins onto the face, and developing these I would like this to be a key element within my interpretation creating a transparency within the skin and mirroring the idea of the leafs in the hair- flowers slowly dyeing and decaying. I have further decided that I should keep the peeling only around the mouth and a tiny part around the nose rather than in the larger areas as I felt it took away from the delicacy of the veins.

I was pleased with what I had learnt in todays lesson and felt a lot more positive with the help from Lottie and although I didn’t get to create my full final design onto my partner I found this lesson made me feel a lot happier and confident with my direction of my design.

I would like to practise before my assessment as I feel this would make me feel more confident going into my assessment I will try and organise to meet Sandra out of class hours.

Lottie's example

Colour contour 

Illness Practical

When creating an illness on your artist you need to research and have an understanding of the illness, make sure you understand the progression of the illness beginning or end? How ill are they? How dose it present itself? What are the symptoms? For things like fever think about places were people get hot.

Products used:

-Charles fox product

-Supra colour

-Glycerin- good for sweat & tears

-Liquid latex or duo- peeling, cold sores etc.

-Eye drops- crying effect

-Pipettes- applying the glycerin     

-Stipple sponges- breaks up the colour

Step 1: Creating tired eyes- mixing the supra colors- green, yellow and red to create a natural brown apply this with a small brush under the eyes, make sure you go right up to the lash line and blend with your fingers. Do the same on the top lid and blend in a bluey red tone into the corners underneath to create a realistic look. Final apply red liner into the inside of the ye and blend in with a cotton bud.

Step 2: Creating a Rash- Don’t apply base and the natural reds in the skin tone will help, use a red tone and blot on with fingers over the face were someone would naturally get hot ie- cheeks, forehead, chin and end of nose, you can further use the stipple sponge to create a more realistic texture.

Step 3: Creating ill looking lips- using a bluely red tone over the base of the lip place duo onto the lips and wait till sticky and pull up gently to make the lips appear dry and chapped. You can build up the duo to create cold sore like bumps.

Step 4: Sweat- with the glycerin in a pipette dot over the face around the hairline you can also use water to spray in the hair to dampen and create the sweaty look.

Additional techniques:

-To create wrinkles into the neck get your model to stretch the skin up and apply layers of latex onto the area making sure you stipple out as not to create any hard edges, use and hair dryer to speed up the process.

-To create raised veins add Tuplasty by Charles fox onto the vein area over the top of the colour and powder down after wards.

I didn't get a chance to practise my own illness creation onto my partner as we were discussing other techniques for Miss Havisham but i will meet with Laila later on in the week so i have a chance to practise these techniques. 

Silhouette for Miss Havisham

After creating my initial design for my silhouette i was inspired from some of the other designs in my class who got to use accessories for there photos this has a really good effect in the silhouette adding texture and interesting depths on camera and inspired my own research.

In my characterisation details i had researched for makeup i wanted the effect to look raw, intimate and detailed an element i loved when researching my visual imagery on Pinterest and over the web.
I began thinking about this in terms of my hair design above are some images taken from my Pinterest board-(http://www.pinterest.com/milliejohns/hair-miss-h/ ) that i feel portray these elements looking through texture and shape. I loved the first image of the veins through the leaf as i feel this symbolises the decay of Miss Havisham yet in a very delicate and fragile way.
I initially thought that i could add this into my deign either using real leafs or as i began thinking more creating a similar structure with material and wire so in the silhouette the same effect is created similarly to the image on the second row on the right.

The naturalistic element within these images reminds me of the vines and flowers surounding Satis House a big element i feel relates to Miss Havisham everything around her is decaying yet in her mind she wants to be stuck in time. I feel the breaking down of the leaf symbolises what Miss havisham is trying to avoid 'the pasting of time'.

I further looked at veils to symbolise the wedding day Miss Havisham will never let go i love the effect of the ripped cobwebbed effect of both these veils almost creating a breaking free atmosphere within the what seams to me a suffocating accessory, the intimacy of these images portrays a story something i would like to explore when creating my designs and taking my final images. I would like to experiment with veils in silhouette as i would like see the effect this has and if it would add or take away from my design.

Silhouette

This is my final image from todays class were i had an hour to create my style, initially i wasn't sure about the silhouette structure but when i pulled the hair out and added texture around the outside i felt the structure looked more interesting also as show below Seema suggested i pull the french pleat tighter at the bottom this has a huge effect on the overall shape of the silhouette and defiantly improved it!

When creating the style i though my models hair would have better effect as its thick and long although when actually doing it i found there was almost too much hair to work with for this style and the curls at the top were a lot harder to create meaning i didn't have much time to decay my style. Further as her hair was so thick i used a larger barrel curl meaning that there was not as many curls as i had planned although this can be changed for next time. Next time i would like to develop with creating more of that 'decaying' feel by pulling out more hair and creating a depth in texture around the structure the one element i love with my final image above it the texture of the front curl i would like to to be carried on through out.

'Fate loves'

Fate. . (-). Fatelondon. Available: http://www.pinterest.com/fatelondon/. Last accessed Feb 2014 .

While pinning some inspiration for my Miss Havisham i came across a website http://www.fatelondon.com ( Saffron Hunt . (2014 ). Fate P Love . Available: http://www.fatelondon.com. Last accessed 11th Feb 2014 .)which sell home homewears they had a section called 'fate loves' for Pinterest and i fell in love with some of their images i chose some particularly i was drawn to

the colours within the images i found inspiring they all have a very raw and intimate feel to them something i relate to Miss havisham, each image to me represents skin and touch through the textures used yet in a very delicate way. I would like to take inspiration from these images and create a Miss havisham character through the colour and texture that is very raw but delicate element as its something i am drawn to when finding visual imagery for the character to possibly symbolise her hurt and distress from her past i also found this when watching the adaptations of her in film she becomes very distressed easily if something is said she dose not want to hear often sending pip away. As i become more familiar to the character i  feel this is Miss havisham true side rather than the confident woman who wants to break all mens hearts.

Experimenting for Silhouette design

After my previous research on victorian hair and silhouettes i felt i had a better idea of the style i wanted to create exploring the idea of strong waves from my 'Cold' design image. I wanted the hair to create that wave effect across the top of the head as i feel this would look effect in a silhouette photo.

I took inspiration from images on my Pinterest looking at traditional victorian styles and decided to create the main section of my design in the middle pulling back into the french pleat as in my last class practise i didn't like the separation between the two sections and the main textural element was at the side witch would blend into the side of the head when shooting profile silhouette.

In the Top right image i began experimenting with the kind of wave i wanted by just pinning the hair although i though the effect was interesting i felt this was a much more contemporary version of the tight wave. I think began with the technique shown to me last lesson to create that soft but tight wave by curling the hair in sections. After this was done i actually loved the effect this had the tight curls created a wave across the top but created an interesting shape within the centre of the hair when placed in front of the light  the hair formed a circle through the barrel curl. 

I then loosed these tight curls up and created more of that heavy fronted feel i love about the victorian hair styles , to add in my decaying elements i would pull out sections of the hair and either crimp or backcomb to create that soft frizz over the entire form. 

My model for my shoot in class has long and thick hair so i feel this would look more effective as the entire structure would be a lot larger and to exagurate the style in my silhouette shoot.

MoodBoard Miss Havisham

I wanted to pull all of my inspirations together into one place so i felt i had a clearer understanding of what i wanted to create for the interpretation of Miss Havisham's character. I pulled all the images from Pinterest board i had created and from work in class and created this, exploring all the elements that i would use- colour: blues, yellow tones and deep reds ( seen in the images on the right)  and within Texture & shape ( mainly images on the left) : powdered, peeling, greasy, wrinkles, deep set eyes and veins.

I wanted to experiment with these ideas onto the face as i felt creating a face chart you couldn't blend the colours well and create the peeling effect. I'm not happy with this out come as i found i came across a few problems when mixing the colours i wanted for the bruising effect as done in class i couldn't get the correct shade- i defiantly would like a bruising wheel to help me get these yellowy red tones i would like to achieve the 'ill' 'bruised' look and will buy one for my final assessment. Furthermore i felt the overall effect isn't what i has imagined i would like to create more depth especially within the scratching on the chest and under the cheek bone to create that thin feel.

Although there is a lot i would like to change i experimented with Vaseline onto the face to create a sweaty feel around the eyes and nose and i loved how this turned out as its very subtle but effective.I further looked at using talc onto the chest to create a similar effect to one of the images on my mood board and i felt this worked well although didn't show on camera. 

I experimented with an idea talked about previously looking at Miss havisham with a lip colour and cheek stain to create the effect that although this was frown upon at the time that she didn't let society dictated what she wore. I added a subtle pink on the cheeks, eye and lip area. Although i like the idea i feel it takes away from everything else and docent look authentic for the victorian era . Although i would like to use more red around the nose and eyes to look as though she has been crying?

I feel i need to experiment further with my design and build apon what i am already happy with: peeling on nose and lips, skin base, dark brusied circles around the eyes and scratches i feel i need to more away from the though that i need to create an over complicated design and just create something authentic i feel i would like to take up my time in the assessment created the perfect base and creating something that looks real rather than adding in a lot of different elements.