Guest interview: "My hobby is doing special effects make-up!"

This time I talk to Nicole, 14, as she gets to work on us... 

How did you first get into special effects make-up?

I started doing it last summer after I met a girl at my mum's friend's wedding who did it. We became friends on Facebook and I saw her special effects photos and thought, "Ooh, I could try that".

Some people would say it's a very gruesome hobby! What would you say to them?

It's fun! It's artistic! It's creative! I want to be a paramedic and it's made me much less squeamish. Before, whenever I saw something bloody and horrible, I would have gone, "Oh woh woh", but now I'm like, "Oh...okay". It's good being able to watch a film or programmes like Casualty and think, "Ooh, that's fake". You can spot things straight away. I'd love to do make-up for TV. 

So how did you start?

I just got 99p fake blood and researched what I could make myself, like fake flesh out of flour and water with a bit of vaseline. But the blood was BRIGHT red and it was difficult to blend the edges of the flesh, so it looked a bit like having a dollop of cookie dough on your skin! 

But I did a cut and a bullet hole in my brother's cheek with that. Then I experimented with eye shadow, like browns and blues for wounds and bruises, and then I got this box for my birthday with face paints and latex and lots of sponges and brushes and that changed things quite a bit. *Look away now if you're squeamish!*

How hard is it to learn?

It takes time to work out what works and what doesn't and what colour combinations look realistic. I struggled with the very first ones. Even now, it often goes wrong. There's a lot of of wiping bits away, doing it again, wiping it away, doing it again. It definitely develops skills like perseverance and patience!

Where do you get your ideas?

I google YouTube all the time for inspiration. Sometimes you see something and you want to do it but you haven't got the right products, but you've got to be able to improvise, find something that will get the same effect. And you have to be confident – it won't work if you think it won't work!

How long does it take?

Bruises only take about two minutes. The longest I've ever spent doing something was three hours but that was a full half a face. On myself!

How often do you do it?

It's the thing I look forward to doing the most once I've got studying and stuff out the way. It's quite often what I do in the evenings. I just sit there experimenting on myself! I did my friend for Halloween – I did two bloody holes in her neck – and I did my brother's girlfriend the other day.

So, you've finished doing us now. Can we see the results...?
First, my daughter, who would only allow the merest hint of a bruise to be done on her...

Then me, with a right shiner...

And finally, my daughter's friend...

If you like this (or hate it and want a much lighter and fluffier make-up project!), you might like Unbratting the Bratz: Give a doll a makeunder.

Can they pull it out of the bag? The ‘Lucky dip dessert’ challenge

School holidays and it was my turn on the child-care swap rota: Four girls. Six hours. Wet weather. Small town. No car. Tight budget. I was going to need more than a smile and a tube of Smarties to sail through this one. I screwed up my brain really tight and squeezed an idea out just in time. “We’re going to have a 'Lucky dip dessert' competition,” I told the girls...

Two teams of two. Each team has to choose and buy a random selection of sweet items in the supermarket for the other team. The challenge is to make the best desserts you can from the items you're given! Then I’ll put photos of the desserts on my Facebook page for a ‘live’ vote. Whoever’s desserts get the most ‘Likes’ is the winning team!

The rules
● You can spend up to £3.50.
● You must buy at least 5 items.
● Include something SOLID (e.g. biscuits, cake, chocolate bar), something SOFT (e.g. mousse, cream, mousse) and at least one FRUIT (fresh or other). Don’t include anything that has to be cooked or prepared (e.g. get a pot of jelly, not squares of jelly) or that will melt (i.e. ice-cream!).
● Don't let the other team see what you're buying – keep it as a surprise for them!
● You must use some of EVERY item in the bag you're given to make your desserts.
● Think up names for your desserts .

I nudged them into pairing up so that there was a younger and older girl on each team to make it fair and jiggle friendship dynamics a bit. Then they gave themselves names – Team Awesome and Team Terrific – and we set off for the supermarket.

I watched them from a distance.Dodging each other in the aisles to keep their buys secret. Totting up prices in their heads with scrunched-up faces. Slavering over the sprinkles shelf. Swapping and switching items to get the most they could with their £3.50.Their delight at the price of Basics biscuits. Their shock at the price of squirty cream.
And finally, queuing up at the checkout and paying ever-so-politely like mini-housewives on a serious mission.
“That was really nerve-wracking!” said one of the younger girls afterwards. “I’ve never paid on my own before.”

Back at home, it was time to swap shopping bags. “Ooh...argh...good...nooo...” they squeaked as they examined the contents.
Here were the items Team Awesome had to work with.
And these were Team Terrific's. "Tic-tacs?!” they said, not sure whether to be pleased or peeved.
To prevent them plunging straight into a sugary gunge, I suggested they design their desserts on paper first. “Think of it as food art,” I told them. “You want your desserts to look good.”
And then they got stuck in, snapping, grating, bashing, layering...
Although there was lots of aesthetics and ingenuity going on (who knew cutting chocolate biscuits with a star-shaped cookie cutter would work?!), I also sensed the same, simple, sensual pleasure a toddler gets from making mud-cakes in the garden!
And the ideas just kept coming, until each team had a range of desserts, ready to be named, labelled and arranged for a photo shoot.

So, let me introduce to you the creations of Team Terrific...
...versus the creations of Team Awesome...
I put the pictures on Facebook with the heading VOTE NOW! (with 'vote closes at 4pm', the time the girls were going home) and we watched, excitedly, as the votes immediately started coming in.

Ooh, green was taking an early lead...but would purple catch up?

While we waited, we all picked one dessert to try... erm, let's just say, the pleasure was in the making rather than the eating. Turns out bashed-up ginger biscuits in chocolate mousse with jelly tots on top isn't such a great combo after all.

Incredibly, the final score was a tie: 10:10. But what do you think? Which is your favourite?!

Rrrrip-roaring fun: Make an altered book

I love how creative ideas can bounce unexpectedly out of random conversations. One minute I was chatting to a friend about the pros and cons of being a perfectionist, the next minute me and my daughter were immersed in a pile of paper, paint and masking tape and having a whole lot of fun.

My friend had been telling me about how her daughter had done her Year 9 Spanish project with so much care – and flair – that it had made her teacher cry. Instead of handing in a few A4 sheets like the other students, she had created this, an 'altered book'...

Turning an old book into a 'new' book, beautifully designed and crafted...

It even had a box-shaped space carved out of the last pages...

 ...to put in the cassette of the oral part of her project.

I couldn’t wait to have a go at making ‘altered books’ ourselves.

Not that it’s an easy process. Emotionally, that is. Because the first step is to rip pages out of a book. Yep. Rip pages out of a book. There is something about this that feels instinctively, intensely, insanely wrong. “Are you sure it’s okay to do this?” asked my daughter, tentatively tugging at a page. 

I guess, without registering it, we are brought up with some kind of deep reverence for books. I mean, a friend of mine recently told me that a book cries when you turn down the corner of a page to mark your place. 

“Let’s think of it as rescuing them, rather than ruining them,” I said. After all, they were second-hand books that I’d seen sitting unwanted on the charity donation table in our local supermarket for at least a week. Big gulp of air. Rrrrrrrrrip...

So, onto the practical bit:

Step one: Take an old hardback book. 
Step two: Go through the book ripping several consecutive pages out together at even intervals e.g. turn over 3 pages, rip out 3 pages, turn over 3 pages, rip out 3... 

Step three: Take two to four pages at a time and bandage them up together in masking tape, covering all the text, to create lovely, thick, satisfying-to-turn, blank pages, with the text peeping through the tape in a very appealing way.

Step four: Now think of a theme or story and write, draw, paint, collage on the pages as you wish to create a 'new' book. (You can cut out and stick on words from the pages you ripped out if you like.)

My daughter had a very clear idea that she wanted to do a treasure hunt story. After a couple of totally-absorbed hours, humming away to herself, she produced this.

 

  

  

Who knew she’d squirrelled away these gold chocolate coin wrappers since Christmas?!

I decided I’d make mine a present for my sister’s upcoming birthday. It took more than a couple of hours, that's for sure, but I got it posted off just in time. I won't show you the whole story but here are just a few of the pages.

  

  

 

On the morning of her birthday, I received this email.

Flippin' Nora. I have only just finished crying. The best present I have ever had in my life!!!!

Seems I'd created a tear-jerker too, just like the Spanish project – the creator of which, now 20, is a perfectly superb cook with her own perfectly enticing food blog. Check it out here for a different kind of inspiration. 

Trash to treasure: Do Found Object art

I can never resist a glance at other people’s rubbish. You never know what you might find. A nice retro piece of furniture in a skip? Someone’s abandoned half-written novel in their recycling? I even like old shopping lists left on supermarket trollies. Because all rubbish has a history, a secret previous life. Who did it belong to? How did it end up here?

So one day when my daughter had a friend over, I thought we could try and give some rubbish a new story, a second life, by using it to create pieces of art.

First we needed to get ourselves some rubbish...

The Rubbish Hunt

We set off on a stroll around town, plastic bags in hand. 

The girls were not optimistic. “But there won’t be much to find,” said the friend. “Yeah, just like old wrappers and stuff,” said my daughter.

So I told them about what I call the White Horse Syndrome (not sure what it’s actually called but it is a thing!):

If you ask someone how often they see white horses when they go on a car journey, they’ll say hardly ever. But the next time they go on a car journey, they’ll notice white horses everywhere. Once your brain is alerted to something, it homes in on it.

Their eyes and minds opened wider and soon they were tuning into ‘treasures’ everywhere. Oh, the thrill of finding a smooth “emerald” piece of glass or a bottle top that “looks like gold”... 

Or a Christmas elf, a popped balloon with the string still attached, a rusty nail, a silver star... 

 

A neighbour gardening at the front of her house gave us an old piece of old pottery she’d just dug up. Nature presented us with a few goodies too, like unusually-shaped twigs and those aeroplane seed things.

 

We got expert at spotting an interesting shape or splash of colour in the distance and became addicted to getting the next ‘hit’. (Oh, and just in case you're shuddering, I had my beady eye out for dangers and dog-poo!).

The rubbish became more precious to the girls as they started to form plans in their head.

“I might make a scarecrow picture with my stuff,” said my daughter, looking at a piece of frayed fabric she’d picked up.

“I want to make a funfair picture,” said her friend “Because this piece of metal could be a rollercoaster track.”

The Trading Session

When we got home, we each spread our finds out on pieces of paper. 

There had been some objects the girls had both spotted and raced to pick up at the same time, leaving one disappointed. So I decided a show-and-swap session would be good fun – done with mock-formal ceremony.

We took it in turns to point out something of someone else’s we really, really wanted...

...and if there was something of theirs the owner was happy to swap it for, an exchange took place – sealing the deal with a handshake!

The Arty Bit

I’d planned to show the girls some art by proper Found Object artists online before we started our own pictures. I wanted to encourage them to think about the effect of the ‘whole picture’ – like painting their canvases with a background colour first or using their finds in an abstract way. But by the time I’d nipped to the kitchen and back to make myself a cup of tea, they’d already got stuck in. 

 

And were in 'flow'.

They were using the objects to make little disconnected and ‘real’ pictures, doing things in their own happy way, humming to themselves.

Stones, a tassel and a chopped-up drinking straw became a donkey...

A snail shell became a snail (obvs!)...

Feathers were used to make a candy floss stall...

And birds...

 

I loved this seagull...

We used a hot glue gun to stick the objects to the canvas. (Hot glue guns by the way, if you haven’t got one, are The Best Invention Ever. The answer to 90% of the problems in life I’ve found!).

“This isn’t turning out like I had in my head, but it’s really fun,” said the friend.

I decided to use my own finds to make a sort of ‘Museum of Found Objects', with little compartments of paper painted with a reddish-brown ‘rusty metal’ colour.

“Ahh…you’re not making the things into things, you’re just using them as they are,” said the friend.

Before I knew it I had two little helpers. They even made me phone the friend’s dad to ask if she could have an extra hour. They typed out labels on our old child’s typewriter, helping me think up the ‘story’ behind each object.

This was our final collaborative picture.

A few weeks later at a friend’s house, by sheer coincidence (or perhaps it was the White Horse Syndrome), I saw this gorgeous Found Object mirror on her fireplace. 

She said her mum had made it out of her and her brother’s old toys and bits of pieces found around the house.

That's our next project sorted then!