Makeup Class

Making Your Face Outline Sheets for Makeup Renderings

[This is a new assignment for my Drama 112 Stage Makeup Class at Diablo Valley College this Fall 2020. This semester my class obviously must be fully online, so I am posting the assignments as I make them so other stage makeup teachers can use them.]

Part 1: Taking Your Photo

Step 1: Watch these Videos

These two brief videos explain what we have been doing, and what we will do next, and why:

As you can see, having copies of a face outline sheet of your face (or that of a member of your household who you plan to use during the semester as your makeup “victim”) will make doing your makeup rendering (color sketch) projects much easier.  So for this assignment you will do the first step to make one:

Step 2: Take a Selfie

Take a selfie where your face and head take up almost the whole frame. 

Don’t squint, or grin, or frown, try to look as bland as a deer in headlights: eyes wide open but no expression. This way, when you use the outline sheet for makeup of different characters, the face does not have you cheery and grinning for a makeup as Lady Macbeth, or frowning like a demon as Little Buttercup!

Step 3: Convert to B&W

Convert the photo to High Contrast Black & White. This makes drawing it easier, regardless of your skin tone!  If your skin is dark and having trouble going into the format, try putting your photo into a different app where you can pull your midtone color lighter to help you make the outline.  (These photos generally do not make anyone look good, they just need to be contrast-y enough that they are easy to outline on a window.)

Step 4: Print the Photo

Print out your photo on plain copy paper.  No printer?  Printer not working?  Don’t want to leave your home?  FexEx/Kinkos closed? 

You can also pay $1.19 to have your photo printed on copy paper and mailed to you within a week!   Go to Print That For Me (Links to an external site.) and follow her instructions and you will get it mailed to you in a hand-written envelope from SF in 4-6 days. 

Step 5: Upload Your Photo

To get your credit for Part 1, upload a copy of your Black & White photo to Canvas.

Part 2: Drawing Your Outline

*Note: This assignment has a delayed due date, so if you are waiting on delivery of your print, you have a little bit of time to do this step after it comes.

Step 1: Make lines on your selfie 

Using a very narrow black pen or sharp pencil (Don’t use a regular Sharpie!) take your 8.5×11 printer paper selfie print and mark edges that may be hard to define once the paper is flipped.  Mark the bottom edge of chin, eyebrow outline, and details of the eyes. If your hair is close to your skin color mark your hairline also.

On the nose go around the outer curl of the nostrils as shown, and do the gull wing “V” line of the tip of the nose. Do not join the nostril curls and “V” line either here or later on the other side, or your nose will look weird and knobby on your Outline Sheet. Finally mark the bridge of your nose by running lines slightly inside the two sides of the shadows on the sides of your nose as shown here, don’t connect to the nostril curls, or this will look odd:

Step 2: Flip your photo

Take your photo and flip it around to the blank side and tape it to a window (or lay it on a light board if you own one). This will make your face outline sheet a backwards version of your face, the same way you see your face in the mirror. If you are making a face outline for doing makeup on a household member, put a sheet of paper over the front of the photo and tape both sheets to the window so the sheet comes out frontways.

Step 3: Draw outlines & eyes

Draw a simple outline on the back of the photo for the outline of the face.  Put in light, vague suggestions of hair, neck and shoulders.  Put in details of the eyes, but don’t put in heavy lines or every single eyelash.  Put a light dotted line where the outline of the eyebrow was drawn on the other side.  When you do makeup you may  cover and “move” your eyebrows, so a dotted line will make your makeup renderings avoid having two obvious sets of eyebrows.

Step 4: Draw the nose and mouth

Draw the lines of the nose as you did them on the other side.  Remember not to join the curls of the nostril to the “V” of the tip of the nose.  You want minimal lines.  

Lips are another area that moves with makeup. Draw another dotted line around the lips, (or a very thin line) where you marked your guideline on the other side so if you increase or decrease the shape of your mouth, you don’t get the outline lips to overpower your lip color/outline on your Makeup Renderings.

Step 5: Scan your outline

Take the page off of the window and scan it so you can make more copies.  If you don’t have a printer/scanner, there are lots of free and easy phone scanner apps you can use. I photographed this one on my phone (see at left) then ran it through the free version of of the Adobe Scan app to make a more high contrast PDF that is easy to send to a printer:

You can send a jpg, gif, or a pdf in the next step.

Step 6:  Upload

Upload a copy of your face outline sheet to Canvas for points

Step 7: Make Copies

By the end of Week 3 you will want to have multiple copies of these for your projects (at least 15).  In week 4, and most weeks thereafter, you will do a makeup rendering (color sketch) using one of these sheets before you do your makeup.   I recommend printing copies on card stock in beige, white, tan or “brown paper” color depending on your preference.

Makeup Class

Make Your Alien Replicant Twins

[This is a new assignment for my Drama 112 Stage Makeup Class at Diablo Valley College this Fall 2020. This semester my class obviously must be fully online, so I am posting the assignments as I make them so other stage makeup teachers can use them.]

The Master Plan For World Domination:

For this project you will again use a phone app to do something that is both useful and a little silly looking.  You will take your photo straight on (no tilting or you will look more “Space Alien” than you intend) in the free version of the Photo Mirror phone app, then manipulate it in the app to make two new “Alien Replicant” versions of your face with the two right sides repeated on one, and the two left sides on another:

As you can see this makes slight asymmetries in your face easier to see. Next week when we do “Corrective” makeup it will let you see which areas you may wish to try to even out.

Step 1:

If you use an iPhone, download the free version of the Photo Mirror App: 

NOTE: If you are on Android or another system, just go to your system app store and check out a few of the hundreds of available free “photo mirror” apps that are out there, till you find one that lets you do what you want. I tried 3 apps in the Apple system before I found the easiest one for iPhone, but unfortunately I don’t have the other types of phones to test. However, if my own experience holds true you may find some fun free apps that while they wont let you make an alien twin they can do other fun things with your photos, so your time is not wasted.

Step 2:

Use the app to take your photo.  Try to get your face to take up most of the frame, and not to tilt one way or other, take photos till you get one that does this.

Step 3:

Save the face to your phone by using the up arrow at the top of the screen.  Hitting the up key opens options for saving and/or sharing including a down arrow key button at left. Hit that button to save to your phone. The image will show a Save Success rectangle on the photo when it saves correctly.

Step 4:

Hit the first mirror key in the app (shown here as blue) to mirror-double the face:

Then drag the image towards the center till the sides merge into a single face:

Save the face to your phone:

Step 5:

Click the next mirror key which will show the other side of the face. Adjust the position of the face to look normal. Save the image to your phone.

Step 6:

Upload your three pictures to Canvas below:

Optional Step 7:

Play with your face and the app to do fun silly stuff to share with your friends.  (Or not.)

Go on to see How to Make your Face Outline Sheet!

Makeup Class

Photograph Your Funny Faces

[This is a page I’m putting into my Fall 2020 Stage makeup class where the class is now moving online. Normally this is an exercise I just have folks do in the mirror in the makeup room, but now need proof they are doing it at home. This is how it will happen now, and they can do it all on their phones! If this seems like a good idea to you, feel free to copy and stick it in your newly online stage makeup classes!]

Making a collage:

Once you have practiced making funny faces for a while it is time for you to make a PicCollage  of your faces so I can document that you actually did your funny face-making homework :

You can choose to do a series of exaggerated emotions like the set I do above, or you can do a series of face stretches where you focus on the particular muscles that move the parts of your face. 

Need Help with Face Stretching?

If you are still having trouble doing face stretches there are two European acting teachers in the video below who will teach you how to flex your face like putty (this is a funny video, but you mainly need it if you are having difficulty with flexing your face and want to learn more of how to do this):

This type of exercise can let you make all sorts of face muscle stretches like the ones I do in the grid above the video.

How to do this project:

Take your phone and take a lot of pictures of your face as you try to pull each of the muscles of your face as far as you can.  Try to:

  • Raise both your eyebrows as high as they can go
  • Lift one eyebrow
  • Crunch your brows close together like you have a terrible headache
  • Make you eyes wide and big as possible
  • Crunch up your nose like you smell something very bad
  • Raise one nostril
  • Grin as wide as you can with teeth clenched
  • Pull your lips into a small pucker
  • Try to touch your nose with your upper lip
  • Pull the corners of your mouth down and your lower lip out
  • Try to crinkle the corners of your eyes.

Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t do movement as extreme as I do.  I am over 60 and I have been practicing pulling faces in the mirror since I was 2 (and I still can’t lift just one eyebrow).  Results will vary by where you grew up, who you grew up with, your temperament, your family, your facial expression recognition, your friends, your genes, and your age. Most of all it will vary by practice.  The more you do it the better you will get at it!

If on the other hand, you are still having fun:

I suggest you also watch Jason Hewlett, a man who has made a very successful performing career built on the foundation of being able to do this. (Watch this one even if you don’t think you “need” it, as it will teach you face tricks you likely have not seen before, with an explanation of how to eventually do them.)

His motivational speaker talks are even better.  But now it is time to…

Take photos of emotions:

Then do a series of photos where you try to show the most extreme emotion you can show.  There is a list below to give you ideas. If you have a neurological difficulty recognizing facial expressions, you can try copying them from this awesome Emotions and Facial Expressions chart.

There is also a handy lecture on the 7 “Universal” facial expressions, that will demonstrate them for you.  While most of you are lucky enough to just understand intuitively what they mean, it is very helpful for actors and for life in general if you know exactly what muscles you need to move to correctly to “fake” these emotions on cue.  One of the most important skills to learn in life, and one most people do not learn, is how to “fake” the smile of genuine enjoyment on cue, simply by doing the correct eye-crinkle.  Being able to flash this at people when they need reassurance (or on stage) is a great way for getting people to like you.  The best bit is when you do it, it bio-feedbacks to your own brain as well and actually makes you feel a little bit good too:

However, you need more than 7 emotions for a good face grid, so to try to do:

  • Joy
  • Fear
  • Anger
  • Sadness
  • Confusion
  • Contempt
  • Disgust
  • Smugness
  • Surprise
  • WTF?
  • Amusement
  • Annoyance
  • Dislike
  • etc.

Choose your collage theme:

Look through the photos and decide which of the two groups you want to use for your collage:

My iPhone showing resent photos of funny faces

Making the collage on your phone:

Download the free version of the phone app PicCollage ), or any other free (and easy to use) collage-maker app you can find to work with your phone, tablet or laptop. 

 In PicCollage , open Grids:

My iPhone in PicCollage app looking at the grid screen

Select the photos to put into the grid.

Arrange the photos to taste and click on the check mark to go to Save or Share Screen. 

On the Save or Share Screen, save the finished Collage to your Library. 

Uploading Your Photos to Canvas:

Then go to the share options below, and clip on the lower right hand circle with three black dots for “More”

This will make the screen show you all the apps you can share with, including Canvas Student.  Select Canvas Student.

Choose Introduction to Stage Makeup, followed by the name of this assignment:  “Photograph Your Funny Faces” and upload to turn in.

See the next Makeup class project: Make Your Alien Replicant Twins

Makeup Class

There is Nothing Wrong with Your Face!

[NOTE: This is how (after I go over the syllabus info) I begin teaching my stage makeup class at Diablo Valley College. Given that many theatrical makeup teachers are likely still in meltdown mode trying to work out before Fall 2020 how to stick an entire semester of makeup class online, I thought I’d post what I am constructing on Canvas (the online class course ware we use in the California Community College system) in case they’ want to copy and paste parts (or all) of this into their classes. (If you use Canvas you will be able to import it from Canvas Commons ).]

There Is Nothing Wrong With Your Face!

Watch this video where I explain the whole theme of the class in the weirdest way possible:

Grab a mirror and start making faces.  Don’t be shy, go for it!:

Jester portraits of the 15th through 17th Century

Then watch this video and start to feel your face to find the bony bits:

So, now, feel your face, and the bones and muscles as you move your face. Find the indent near the back of your jaws, find the subtle ins and outs of your forehead, the edges of your eye sockets. Feel the bone and cartilage of your nose and the location of your brow ridge in relation to your eyebrows. In the next few days, whenever you feel tense, pull out a mirror, flex and massage your face and start looking at the interesting component parts. It is relaxing, and will help you in the coming weeks!

Go on to Page 2 Photograph Your Funny Faces!