Working with The Human Art Collective

Okay... prepare for a long post with some gushing, awing, and lots of photos; this last weekend was definitely a dream come true. Saturday the 7th and Sunday the 8th I had the AMAZING opportunity to work with a body painting group based in Northern California called The Human Art Collective. I was invited by some friends of a past employer, who are models and artists themselves, knowing that I was interested in that field of work. Each day consisted of 7+ hours of application and preparation, and following that was another 6+ hours of showcasing at SubZero Festival in Downtown San Jose! Unfortunately I wasn't able to be there the entire time; school and my job got in the way; I did get to be there for one of an application periods, and for one night at SubZero though! I'll start from the beginning:

I arrived around 1pm on Saturday, and I must say I was a bit nervous. I enjoy the art of body painting, and I think that it's absolutely beautiful and intriguing, but I had never been in an actual situation where I was able to watch professionals paint on semi-nude bodies. Yes, I was worried about the whole 'nude' part at first. I was legitimately like 'oh god, I'm about to go to this place with a bunch of naked people walking around!' and I was worried that I was going to act like a nervous, red-faced child while I was there, and make everything awkward; but it was quite the contrary actually. The women are wearing pasties and underwear, and the men are wearing briefs, so they're not as naked as I thought they would be. After being there and helping out, painting, and getting involved, the fact that they're naked is the least of your worries! You totally get over the fact that your 'canvas' is a male or female without their clothes on, it's not sexual or awkward at all, I was actually surprised at myself for getting over it so quickly. The atmosphere is totally easygoing, carefree, and fun. It was definitely an eye-opening experience, it literally showed me (even though I already knew subconsciously) that the naked human being is not just there for sexual or pleasurable reasons, but it is literally an art form that I fell in love with almost immediately.

Anyway; I was kindly introduced to all artists and models, and then I was assigned a project by the very talented airbrush artist Rich, and his model Audrey. I started by using a kabuki brush (which I have never used to paint before, and I now realize that I need to buy these in numbers, they're amazingly useful!) to paint a light blue base coat on Audreys legs. Audrey was there as a first time model, and she was very sweet! It was a cool experience being a first time painter, painting on a first time model. Rich was very helpful, and gave me some great tips and advice! Afterwards, I then made my way to the front yard where they were airbrushing some stenciled leaves on a model named Patrick. I have an airbrush machine myself, and I've only used it a few times, but I had never used it on someone else. Ciara, the woman/model who invited me to her home, and Chrysalis, the very talented SFX makeup artist who had created Patricks character, asked me to help airbrush the leaves. I got a couple of good stencils in there, but then I spilled some paint on him by accident and counted myself out, haha. It wasn't a huge deal, and it was easily fixed, but I was nervous about messing something else up! 

I observed everyone else for awhile, watching painting techniques, and tools used. I then returned to Audrey and Rich to paint some stars on her face, chest, back, and arms; and then I helped hold the stencil in place while Rich airbrushed a pattern onto her painted dress. So, I did little things here and there to help out, I was thrilled to be able to pick up a brush; even if it was just for little details. Everyone was so nice to me, they were really encouraging and were pleased to have me there! It was an awesome feeling being welcomed by a family of amazing and talented artists. Unfortunately, I was unable to go to the festival that night because I was scheduled to work, but here are some photos of Saturdays application period, and the finished looks of that day! As you can probably tell, the theme was 'Elements', Air, Water, Fire, Earth. (none of the photos are mine unless stated otherwise).

                                    Photo by me; Air                                Finished look; Fire Phoenix

                                                                      Finished looks; Earth

                                                    Finished looks; Air & Egyptian Goddess

                                                Finished looks; Fire Phoenix & Embers

My Photo

HAC in the Silicon Valley Business Journal! (I'm in the background!) :)

HAC in the Silicon Valley Business Journal! I helped paint her stars :)

                                                     Earth; Before and after application

My photo; mask application

My Photo; Air

The next day I was at work throughout the entire application period; but I was able to attend SubZero on Sunday night. I got there at 6:30, after spending thirty of those minutes just looking for parking (DT San Jose can be a nightmare!). The festival itself was absolutely magnificent. I don't know why I had never gone before! An entire street of booths were set up, from small businesses to solo artists. A stage was blaring music from a live band, food trucks were everywhere, and there was an entire section dedicated to chalk art. It was all so fascinating!

The HAC booth had a big x-shaped wooden panel that allowed four different backgrounds for the elements, an open tent where the crowd could watch live body painting, and another tent and table where they could sign up for more information and classes! I was immediately given a 'crew' badge and started to help out by asking the models if they wanted water or anything to drink. Like I said, I wasn't there for the application period, but the models/body paints looked AMAZING! The theme was still Elements, but different artists were assigned different elements this time, so they had completely different looks. I spent the rest of the night (until 11pm!) assisting artists, promoting the collective by handing out stickers and information, letting the crowd know that they can donate $1 to vote for their favorite element, etc. Little things, but I enjoyed being there in general. Just observing everything was an awesome opportunity for me, being as this was my first volunteer experience in the field! I had so much fun, and I didn't want to leave. Here are the finished looks from SubZero festival on Sunday (the last) night! (none of the photos are mine unless stated otherwise).

My photos: Selfies with the lovely Brea, and makeup application on Ciara

  Brea & Ciara finished! (water)

A-MAZ-ING 'earth' bodypaint!

 Fire and Water elements

More application (live!)

 More water! (Sharknado!!)

Water and Earth

Water and Fire

Absolutely breathtaking works of art if you ask me!

 I was more than thrilled to be apart of this event. As I've said many times before, it was an amazing experience and I am so grateful to have been apart of something so beautiful. I met so many great people, and I can only hope that I will be attending many HAC events in the future. I'd like to end this post by thanking everyone that welcomed me and got me involved this weekend. It truly was a blessing! <3

Check out their website: http://www.thehumanartcollective.com/

and like them on facebook!

Sugar Skull Makeup Tutorial

Hello all! This is my first tutorial, so it's not exactly up to par with the usual youtube/blog tutorials I've seen. For example, I'm using my trusty old Iphone for these photos, in my room, with terrible lighting, ha! Anyway, the point is that I'm going to show you how to do this rad sugar skull zombie-esque makeup tutorial. All you need is:

• Black, white, and yellow face paint (I use Mehron)
• Purple (or any theme color you'd like to use) eyeshadow, preferably different shades of one color. 
• Makeup AND paint brushes, along with a painting sponge.
• Liquid eyeliner (it's not mandatory, but it makes things easier!)
• Makeup setting spray, if you need this look to last for awhile!
• Black (or dark purple) lipstick

Okay, now that you have all of your supplies, lets get started!

Step one: First, you're going to need to cover your entire face in white face paint. White is the color I hate the most when covering my whole face, because with a brush it leaves streak marks, and it can also easily become blotchy if you use a sponge that's too wet. So to do this, wet your painting sponge a teeny tiny bit (like literally if you licked your sponge, that's how damp you want it to be!), dip it in your paint, and lightly pat it all over your face. You don't want to brush it, because that leaves streaks, or could wipe the paint off entirely. Be patient, this process could take awhile, especially using white. Don't forget your eyelids! After that's all finished, use a black matte eyeshadow and an angled eyebrow brush to create a cheek shadow. Make a fish face to find the hollow of your cheeks, and just follow your natural shape. Make sure to make the edges sharp, you want the 'shadow' to look creepy! Then blend with your regular eyeshadow brush. If you want, you can add some dark purple in there too; you can't tell in the photo but I added purple to some of the shading!

Step two: Take a very light purple eyeshadow, or whatever color you've decided to incorporate into your sugar skull, and fill in your eyelids, underneath your eyes, above your eyebrows, and almost reaching your temple/hairline. You want big ovals for the eyes, and make sure they're even! Otherwise it looks funky once you start adding the details. Don't add any more eyeshadow other than this light purple until you've outlined the eyes in black, this makes it easier to stay in the lines! You can also use paint, if you'd prefer not to use eyeshadow, but this will make it look a bit flat, and it's a lot harder to get that ombre look!

Step three: Carefully outline the 'eyes' with black paint. It's easier for me to do it in one sweeping motion, instead of little by little. You can go back and fix the uneven parts quicker that way, in my opinion. If you accidentally have some purple leftover outside the black outline, you can use white eyeshadow or white paint and just your fingers to blot it out. Unless you're covering your eyebrows and making them 'invisible', you want to make sure the black outline goes above and beyond them, so you can fill them in with black paint. I don't think you want sugar skull eyes AND eyebrows! (Well, maybe you do. In that case, go for it!) I decided to choose the quicker route to do this, but if you do want a more professional look, you may want to consider concealing your brows!

Step four: Use black paint to make a thick rim around the eyes, then use a medium shade of purple, starting from the rims and blending toward your eye in a complete circle. Leave your eyelid the light purple that you used in step two. After you've successfully blended the medium purple, grab your darkest purple and again, starting at the rim, blend so it fades into your medium purple. After that, use black eyeshadow to blend the black paint in with the dark purple, you don't want a harsh line separating the two colors! Just a heads up, this look requires LOTS of blending to get the ombre eyes! You may have to go back and use the different shades of each color again; and blend, blend, blend away.

Step five: Use a rounded makeup or paint brush to create tiny circles/ridges around the eyes. This step is sort of difficult using yellow and black together, you can use whatever other color you'd like, I just like how those two colors looked next to each other! Again, make sure the brush is really rounded. It makes it super easy to create those little ridges!

Step six: Okay, this part is kind of tough. I totally ran out of liquid eyeliner, so I had no choice but to use a black pencil liner, that's why mine looks kind of sloppy and smudged. Be careful when you're doing this, because if you mess up, its really hard to wipe off with yellow and white face paint underneath it. Don't worry though, mine obviously isn't perfect, I messed up a few times myself! Hopefully you can find some liquid liner or a detail brush laying around, and yours ends up looking better than mine! :P I also added some teeny dots in between the ridges, because I like little details. You can do whatever you want, though!

As for the rest of the look, I leave that to you! Sugar skulls are a great way to show off your creativity, whether you're drawing, painting, or doing one as a makeup. I made mine dark and creepy by adding crosses, spiderwebs, and black lips. I did all of this using black lipstick, black paint and a detail brush, but you can also use liquid liner. The only advice I have to give is have fun with it! Do whatever you think would look cool or edgy. Most Sugar skulls have the traditional spiderweb forehead and sewn lips, but I dare you to try whatever you please!

I actually based this look off of a drawing I did almost a year ago. I drew it originally to do a makeup of it, but I never got around to it until now. I also did a bright, flowery sugar skull that I'll do a tutorial for sooner or later! You can definitely use this look for Halloween or for a party; and you can add little details like black/purple feathers, a tuxedo, etc. I'd love to see what you guys can do with this! Everyone's sugar skull is a little different, and it's one of my favorite things to paint because there are no boundaries!

Here's mine, finished:

Things I'm Lovin' This Month; May Edition

This past week has been particularly stressful. I've found myself having school in the mornings, one job in the afternoon, and my second job from evening until about 2am every night. I've been going nonstop, even the weekends I've working, out of town, or have had some kind of event going on; today was the first actual day I've gotten to relax! (Sort of). In that case, I've compiled together a couple of things I've grown quite fond of within the past month, in the time that I've had to myself.

Click the photo to listen! ^

1.) Shake; by The Head and the Heart. Working in retail you tend to hear the same songs over and over again every day that you're there, and I've come to love this one by The Head And The Heart. It took me a couple of days to get the name and the artist, since the song is being played on a cd; I had to take mental notes of some of the lyrics I had heard and look it up at home. Anyway, I feel like I've heard this song somewhere before; when I heard it the first time in the store it seemed to call back to some subconscious memory. It's a beautiful song, I especially love the bridge/ending. So please, enjoy and share!

2.) Urban Decay All-Nighter Makeup Setting Spray. So, my skin runs anywhere from dirty & oily to dry & flaky. It gets oily between my eyebrows and on my chin, and super dry near my nostrils and on my cheeks. Because of this, my face makeup tends to flake or melt off, and my eyeliner/eyebrows/shadow runs and gets somewhat greasy; this all happens within 2-3 hours. I honestly thought I was going to have to buy super expensive makeup (like $60 liquid foundation!), or reapply my current makeup every hour or so; in order to make it work. But when I do SFX makeup I usually use Ben Nye Setting Spray when it's all finished, and it works great, so I figured there'd be a similar product in the beauty industry.

I bought Urban Decay's All Nighter on a whim last week. I have to admit, I totally thought it wouldn't work; but this product is so great! I've heard you should use it before and after makeup application, but I've only used it afterwards (sprayed once on either side of my face), before I've gone to work or out for a long period of time, and by the time I get home, my makeup is still perfectly intact. My eyeliner isn't even smudged to the corner of my eyes, and if I put lipstick on before I spray, it makes that last longer as well! This is probably the first beauty product that I'm actually completely satisfied with, and I'm definitely going to have to go back and get myself a full bottle before my mini applicator is through!

3.) Urban Outfitters Paddywax Glass Jar Candles. I picked these up spontaneously this week as well, when I was buying a gift for a friend, and they are absolutely fabulous. Vanilla + Oakmoss and Ocean Tide + Sea Salt were the two that I purchased and they fill the room completely! The Vanilla & Oakmoss smells of cedar and the outdoors, and the Ocean Tide & Sea Salt smells of open air and cleanliness. I just love them both, and the little glass jars are adorable; I can see myself putting them to use in the future! Maybe a DIY project?

4.) The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. If you know me, you know that I'm a huge reader. My books are by far my biggest collection, and I set a goal of how many books I'd like to read per year; this year being at 40. This month I had the pleasure of reading Sylvia Plath's, The Bell Jar. It was recommended by one of my best friends, and it is also of course a classic title. I dived into this book thinking it was a book of poetry, for some reason (maybe because I have seen a lot of quotes from Sylvia Plath and The Bell Jar, and they seemed coincidentally poetic), but I was surprised to find that it is actually a novel about a girl named Esther, who is slowly falling into the grip of insanity (still quite poetic!). Though Plath introduces the girl by a different name, I had a feeling that the story had something to do with the author herself, and turns out I was right. The novel is almost completely accurate to true-life events that happened to Sylvia Plath. I find these books much more interesting, because it's not just a story someone thought of off the top of their head (though fictional books are just as intriguing!), but its actually memory upon memory of someone else's life; and that just makes it ten times more fascinating in my personal opinion. I rated the book four stars on goodreads, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is as avid of a reader as I am!

5.) A glass of Barefoot Moscato. When is this ever not a favorite? My alcohol of choice is definitely wine, or some kind of sweet wine, and Barefoot Moscato has definitely been my go-to. I don't drink often, but when I do it is usually paired with a good read, and now, my UO paddywax candle! It definitely sets the mood, and winds me down after a long day. Unquestionably something I've needed all week!

And there you have it, my top five list of things I'm lovin' this month. I'll usually try to do a book review every time I finish one, and I'd like to do a 'favorite song' and/or 'playlist' frequently too. It'd be great to know which topics you as readers are interested in as well, and what you would like to be a recurring blog post. I'm definitely open to recommendations to, well, anything! Happy Monday everyone, lets get this week started!