Mother Earth

            When coming up with different themes and ideas for my portfolio, I started breaking things into different categories. I had basic theatre makeup, time periods, and cartoons. Then I came across the idea to do characters based on nature and the environment. I decided to do my own twist on mother earth to start off the nature section. Since I was putting this entire transformation together and not having a specific reference I had to get creative. I thought about what mother earth stood for and what she protected. I thought about the Amazon right away and how people are going in and chopping down trees and killing animals.  I then pictured mother earth standing in the middle of the Amazon as a giant tree that wouldn't fall or move no matter what.  She simply stood there protecting all the plants and animals.  She was the heartbeat of earth and kept everything safe and alive. Then the entire concept for the hair, makeup and costume came to me.

            For the makeup I designed parts of the face to represent the patterns of different animals the mother earth cares for.  Under my eye I layered a shimmer purple shadow to give my face a sleek wet look. Then with a dark purple eyeliner I drew in a fish scale pattern. For my right eye I began with a white face paint and then set that with a white eyeshadow. Then with a black liner I drew in big dramatic Zebra stripes. On my forehead I used a goldish yellow color and then with a brown liner I drew in random blogs of brown. Then in the middle of that a white liner. You can look at pictures of cheetahs to help with the pattern. Then I did small little dashes with black liner next to the cheetah to look like snake skin. At the top I put more white face paint and set it with white eye shadow. Then I took more liquid liner and drew furry looking black blobs, leaving the middle clear. I looked at pictures of white leopards for this pattern. Then coming off of my right eye, I took a brown liner and drew a line curving down and then added lines going off of it like a feather. Then I took a light blue liner and added a circle then green, more brown, and purple, to look like a peacock feather.  This entire concept is very subjective and any of these patterns can be used anywhere on the face.  Get creative and use whatever animals inspire you.

For the hair I wanted to keep it flowing and natural, like I just came out of the ocean. I didn't want to do nothing, so I started off with a chunk of hair and twisted it over and across my head and secured with Bobby pins. Then I started making small braids all over my head. Once all the small braids were done, I connected random braids together. I was thinking of the vines of a tree when I came up with this idea and how they are all connected to the tree just all with different paths to get to the base.

            For the costume I kept it fairly muted in colors and simple, because I really wanted the makeup to pop. So I drew up a short brown dress and over the dress a baggy white shirt that says "Save the Whales" with a almost sketch like whale on the shirt, with a rope belt bunching the shirt. I wanted to keep the dress short so that I could paint the legs to look like bark on a tree. So that when I stood it was like I was a tree planted into the ground and connected to all thing living. Then, on the arms I used spirit gum to attach leaves and panted some vines connecting them together. So when I lifted my arm I was like the branches of a tree.

Tips for this look:

1) look up picture of animal for patterns and use ones that speak to you.

2) Get creative with the braid and all the connections; keep them random.

P.S. I didn't have time to do this look on anyone so I just tested it out on me first.

Hint for Next Week:

  The change came with erotic fashions, literature and movies, and an unsuspected sexual aid, the automobile.