This incoming collection of blogs is part of my BA(hons) degree- from now onward, it will be in third person as required for the academic blogging style. 

The Major Project that is being completed as part of this course requires the planning and creation of four practical designs that fit a chosen theme and subject for dissertation as well as accompanying other topics that will enhance the ability to run a make up artistry business-such as photography and business management.

Throughout the BA degree, one will be expected to use current skills from previous education and experiences but will also further those skills alongside the gaining of new. First, a topic to explore had to be thought of- what initial ideas came to mind for the practical designs? In this case, this student had a few to condense down...

I. First idea was to follow on from her HND Major Project topic- “Of X-rays and Injuries” she had recreated ‘X-rays’ of injuries using UV body paint and photography- and printed them in black and white onto acetate to display on a lightbox at her exhibition (which was set up as an A&E cubicle), she had also collaborated with a videographer to recreate realistic and ‘fresh’ injuries in SFX make up. The thought was that a follow up could be to design older, healed/survivor injuries, as well as injuries that weren’t survived-recreating autopsy table and ‘accident aftermath’ designs. The subject that would be covered in the dissertation would link to medical entertainment/drama and documentary shows- perhaps the question would explore “What is acceptable to show on TV?”.

II. The next idea followed the artist’s love for fashion; particularly alternative, fetish and clubwear fashion. In her HND she had to cover a fashion subject and she focused on Gareth Pugh, Alexander McQueen and Dayne Henderson-the latter of which is a friend of hers, and specialises in latex fetish fashion. The ideas for this Major Project would have been to explore “What is Artistic vs Pornographic?” and focus it on fetish club and avant garde Club Kid make up and styling, and one of the designs would have included sculpting and making a spikey latex-moulded-to-the-face full ‘hood-mask’, this would not have had the typical cut out eye holes with edges as latex hoods usually have, but would be sculpted to blend seamlessly and look as though the face and latex are as one.

III. The final option was thought up when the artist was inspired by the fictional fantasy drama show American Gods (2017), she was interested in the concept that Gods, Goddesses and deities survive only through being worshipped in some manner, the more they are thought about, talked about etc-the more powerful they are. The show focuses on the modern day as well as acknowledging the past and origins of these ‘gods’ (as they will often be summarised as throughout these blogs) and the inspiration given from watching certain scenes- that included various symbology of nature (such as trees, scorpions, spiders etc) was to explore nature, human kind and religion in some context. The initial practical design idea for this topic was to recreate some of the aforementioned ‘nature symbols’ in body painting and SFX, such as a scorpion and spider, and use the show’s arty, neon lit aesthetics as colouring inspiration-photographing the designs in dark settings and in a manner that UV light enhances them.

The artist chose option III, and became initially inspired and focused on the design of a jumping spider after finding images of this species being lit by UV light (see image 1- Matthew L. M. Lim & Daiqin Li). The artist thought, for the first month or so that the “4 images” required for the project could be of one main design application- those images being 4 differently styled images of that design. She later found out 4 different designs were required, and thought along the lines that different animals could be representative of different gods featured in the show (American Gods, 2017) and that each ‘type’ of god such as War, Love etc related to human traits. She thought it interesting that the show relates other creatures in nature to these traits, hence the ideas coming to fruition regarding her chosen dissertation questioning of “What is the link between nature and religion in modern society?” this question gives opportunity to explore past human trends of religion and nature worship, and compare it to today.

Further exploration of design ideas was needed, bar the first idea of the jumping spider, it was not seeming obvious which other animal designs could be developed. The artist had a meeting with their tutor and discussed the potential of the jumping spider presenting as ‘love’ -after discovering the UV lit photo was from a mating study of the species- identifying UV light spectrums must be present for their successful pairing (c&en, 2007), a scarab beetle as ‘death’ due to eating carrion, or a jackal that represents Anubis could also represent death. It was clear that choosing specific animals was proving tricky when the student mentioned they had considered a black widow spider could represent death instead, which led to the tutor saying “perhaps different spiders is the way to go?”. The artist agreed this was a good idea and began looking up spider species that fitted the characteristics of some gods in the show (see blogs 2,3,4,5) as well as choosing and compiling relevant research methods for the overall project (covered in blog 6).

References

American Gods (2017) Starz [Online] Available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/American-Gods/Season-1/dp/B06ZXS5C29 

c&en (2007) Spider Seduction Requires UV Light [Online]. Available from https://cen.acs.org/articles/85/i5/Spider-Seduction-Requires-UV-Light.html (Accessed December 2nd 

2021)