Día de Muertos
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This was an exciting prospect. I enjoy working with colour and this looked like it was going to be a lot of fun. We had been given the task of designing a Sugar Skull face chart to be applied in class. I jumped at this opportunity because the whole concept of this festival as always entertained my curious side.
I'd cleared the desk in my room and I got out my notepad and trusty mechanical pencil and began to research this holiday. I had first heard of it on an episode of a TV show I would watch as a child, Lizzie Mcguire. It was during the Halloween special episode and her best friend was Mexican and wanted to celebrate it her way.
The Research
| “On October 31, All Hallows Eve, the children make a children's altar to invite the angelitos (spirits of dead children) to come back for a visit. November 1 is All Saints Day, and the adult spirits will come to visit. November 2 is All Souls Day, when families go to the cemetery to decorate the graves and tombs of their relatives. The three-day fiesta filled with marigolds, the flowers of the dead; muertos (the bread of the dead); sugar skulls; cardboard skeletons; tissue paper decorations; fruit and nuts; incense, and other traditional foods and decorations. | ” | |
— (Day, 2003)
My research is the page on the right. I looked into what colours meant what. Why they were used, what they represented. I thought it would be pretty easy to get wrapped up into using any colours but I felt as it was a sacred religious holiday that I should be respectful. It was really interesting to see the colours that are most frequently represent things that are very different to the Western culture. I've never seen purple as a colour of suffering and grief.
Marigolds are the flower that are important to this festival. The belief is that the marigolds are seen by the dead who follow them to find their altars.
 You can see here I began with a tiny doodle of what I was seeing frequently in images that I was looking at in. This was the beginning of my design. I just wanted to get a rough idea of where I wanted the eyes and nose before I started on my facechart. 
On this page of my notebook I had found the most commonly used linework designs. These are apparent on every single sugar skull that you seen. They might not all be used in the same design but there is always at least 2 of these elements in the designs. I also sketched out the design I wanted on the lips.
The FaceChart
I think I may have put too much thought into my design. I was really pedantic about the colour choices and where I put them. Purple under the cheekbones was put there because it is used in this festival to represent grief. I feel as though grief drains you physically and emotionally, and this would be a really gaunt looking face with the shadows of grief done in purple shates. The same with the placement of purple around the eyes, because when we grieve we cry.
I wanted an atomically correct nose. So I looked into bone structures and designed the shapes I wanted on the nose. The yellow around the eyes was supposed to look like flower petals. I knew keeping circles the same size would be difficult so I used a cotton bud at home to test out the consistency and found that it was a reliable way of producing this idea. The OutcomeBibliography
Day, F. A. A. (2003) Latina and Latino voices in literature: Lives and works. 1st edition. United States: Greenwood Publishing Group.
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Reflection
At first I felt really confident with this design. I applied my illamasqua skin base in white mixed with moisturizer, I'd learnt from previous work with Billie that she has really dry skin.
I applied white supacolour ontop to smooth out the patchy parts
Working with grease based problem was something I found rather difficult because I couldn't seem to get sharp lines.
I'm not overly happy with my line work.
I'm not overly happy with my line work.
I'd like to spend more time doing linework.
I'd probably change everything to facepaint or use normal make up products ontop of the base.
The girl next to me created an absolute masterpiece and made me feel pretty crappy about mine. I guess I've got to learn to not compare myself to everyone around me and instead try and learn from them.
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