Last June, I had the opportunity to participate in an experience design Master Class with Odyssey Works in Portugal. It was a delightful mix of participants from multi-disciplinary backgrounds in a beautiful location with an even more beautiful purpose. 

Check out the description of the process and collaborators here: http://www.odysseyworks.org/taz

See the contributor credits for a hint as to why I have a picture of a bowl of dry rub as the banner for this post! ;) 

​Stay tuned for the iconoclastic documentary of the process by Ayushman Pandey, coming soon!

 
The students you see in the video above are in various levels of Costume and Makeup Applied. In addition to listed 3 credit hour courses in design, technology and application of skills in the Theatre catalog, there are options for expanded study in topics and techniques of your choosing, like Jae talks about Undergraduate Research in the video above.

Previous and current topics include: Advanced Makeup techniques (prosthetics, expanded glamour design, wig styling and construction), Historical tailoring techniques, advanced pattern making, as well as special courses intended as senior capstone experiences in portfolio development and pre-professional career planning. Directed Studies are housed in the Theatre department and proposals can be made at any time. Undergraduate Research is a campus-wide initiative that is also available for proposals each semester; they LOOOOOOOVE Theatre majors! We do cool stuff...

For students with varied interests and career goals not completely addressed by any single major, there is a selective process for designing and completing an Interdisciplinary Studies major. Costume and Makeup topics to date in this area include: Conceptual Fashion Design (Costume Design, Retail Merchandising, Art and Business) and Theatre as Anthropology (Costume/Dramaturgy, Behavioral and Social Sciences and Photography). This option is available after the sophomore year and results from a careful mentorship with a Faculty Advisor and approval by the IDS Faculty Committee. It is a lot of work, but for the committed true "liberal arts" student, an exceptional opportunity.

Students have opportunities for design assistant/assistant designer and solo design assignments based on an application and qualifying process. Student designs you can see on my website here include:

SCAPIN Makeup by Stephanie (Farris) Welch '10

​THE BACCHAE Makeup by Sara Larson '12

​CABARET Kit Kat Girl Makeup by Katy Beddingfield '16

Plus many more crew chief (SPRING AWAKENING), assistant roles with significant creative responsibility, student produced designs, and recent productions for which photos aren't in yet!

​Feel free to browse my site as well as the University Page for more photos and information! I hope to see you soon in the shop!

"EmG"

Ugh, you guys. I should have gotten a flu shot!

Huh to the what-now? In my travels, I have found this wonderful, stimulating world of performed design free from the script- sort of... I guess it is performance art, but it seems more rooted in theatre and our style than the performance art world...

Anyway, I spent a great evening talking to Montevallians about my next project that I am working on for performance in 2014 sometime at the Art Sqwalk Art Walk last Saturday. 

Check out the website for my project group: PillowFort Performance Group

This summer, UM offered the Online Stage Makeup class again THIS TIME! with new and improved online teaching software. (Bye-bye Blackboard...)

While I waited for new videos to render and upload, I binge watched Mad Men and The Walking Dead which may have had some adverse effects on my mood...

What struck me, as I watched these shows in the all one sitting fashion, is the really excellent continuity and progression of makeup work- as well as clearly defined style and signature character looks.

SO! As a special extra lesson (and example for the midterm assignment which was to put a character through a disaster) I developed what I hope will catch on soon: The Middle Aged Woman's AMC Channel Fan Universe! (I plonked poor Joan Harris into the prison community outside Atlanta). 

Tutorial videos below show the technique with Ben Nye Student Kit and some other easy to find items, however resolution and file size limits are disappointing (they get better each year though) and you can't see the texture as well as in my selfie above. I don't have freckles...

THE WALKING JOAN Part 1
THE WALKING JOAN Part 2

Some more photos- the last two are messing with basic iPhoto levels to get an idea of digital filtering or editing. The first few are overcast afternoon daylight in my creepy creepy studio area. (Note: for some reason Weebly is doubling these... and I can't figure out why... sorry.)

The next step is to start putting these into easy to use horsehair pieces so they could be styled into the actor's own hair easily by a student hair stylist. See an example below:

Now the fun part: STYLING! A test on me with the heavy stock piece and a very good sport actor, the ever awesome Mia Shirley, with a much lighter piece, as well as also ever fantastic hair and make-up crew member Alix Black in a trial for a particularly active character.