Last year I had the wonderful opportunity to work with a fantastic up and coming designer named Marti’ who has a knack for making classic fitted pieces for her self named collection. A good photographer friend, Josh Marks, had asked me to join him in shooting for her first look book along with another friend and model of ours Missy, of Q Models.

Marti’s pieces are meant to be classic, yet simple and sexy so we wanted Missy’s look to stand out a bit more in terms of hair and makeup. I opted to give Missy’s hair a mass of curls which form was almost bell like. We kept her eyes dark and simple with a winged liner, and used OCC Lip Tar in “Safety Orange” for the extra pop that this beautiful red head could pull off!

When I talked to Marti’ at our second shoot together yesterday, I found out the first look book was a success and the line is stirring up business while Missy’s look has become a signature one for the company. Here is a sample of some of the looks we did that day and to see all of the photos we did for the current season click here.

Copyright Josh Marks

Copyright Josh Marks

Yesterday we did another photo shoot to showcase many amazing new pieces Marti’ has added to her collection including leggings, draped skirts, and stunning dresses. At the end we decided to play a bit with the makeup and take out those oh so perfect curls to give Missy a more colorful statement.

This book is called “Wonderland” and is the brain child of the incredible Design Army , The Washington Ballet, and a photographer whose style takes one’s breath away, Cade Martin.

I have since received some of my best works through the Design Army/Cade combination and this is where it all started. I got a call to do about 4 scenes for The Washington Ballet and in no way knew this would be an amazingly grand production when getting into it. I walked into the Meridian House in Washington D.C. and saw all the lights, the fog, the costumes, the dancers, and already knew this would be unlike anything else I worked on before.

Oh, what it would be like to set up in a room like this all the time.

We started with our first dancers of the day, George Washington and King George III, also known as the Nutcracker and the Rat King. Septime Webre, dancer and extroidinary choreogapher for the Washington Ballet showed them what he would like to see in their upcoming scene they were playing out for Cade’s camera. I was fortunate enough to have my blackberry camera on me to get a few shots but not as fortunate to have a camera that worked very well. Alas, I wanted to include some of the behind the scenes shots to show the energy and hard work that went into this production.

Lots has happened since my last string of posts on my beloved blog, so I have a lot of catching you up to do! One great opportunity my husband, Luis Aragon, and I had was to do a beauty lip story for The Powder Group’s “On Makeup Magazine”.  Here is a behind the scenes look at what went down at Studio 400 in Washington D.C. for this shoot.

On Makeup Magazine Behind the Scenes from Kat Aragon on Vimeo.

Tags: "How-to" Makeup, beauty, Kathy Aragon, lips, luis aragon, on makeup magazine

Hello folks! Ok, so I admit. I was going to just go ahead and put up a post and act like I haven’t been away for almost the entire year…but anyone who knew my blog is  intelligent enough to notice something is up. So here is my official apology “My bad Y’all!” and I’m back with an all new layout and amped to get going all over again.

So with that ackward moment out of the way, I want to share with you something I did this year during my blogging lull that FINALLY just got released! I worked with dozens of amazing NFL Players in the course of a couple of weeks, most all in one day, and a wonderful campaign sprouted from it. You can check out the grooming I did for the NFL Campaign here.

I’m also thankful to have had my new OCC compact airbrush compressore and Skin foundations to get me through this entire week. We were out in the middle of every location possible, many with no available outlets, so my battery powered compressor completely kept up with the tough demands. I am so thrilled to have found Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics. Definitely check them out!

Make sure to put in your email address to get behind the scenes access to the videos. I am shown getting Luis’ Fathers Day present (an autograph from Minnesota Vikings bad boy Jared Allen) and Jared is absolutely crazy. I loved working with them all!

I have been so far behind in posting but I definitely did want to get my readers what was promised and put up footage and photos. In this case I felt  pictures speak louder than words! Join me in a look at the backstage fun at ChoCheng @ Bryant Park for his A/W ‘09 showing.

Key Makeup Artist, Lottie, created a look of neutral toned shadows with doll pink cheeks, beautiful skin and lush lashes. It  is one that I have already adopted since the show and used on many different types of girls and I swear it looks good on every single person I try it on, including myself! 

The makeup team was sponsored by Face Atelier.

I hope you enjoy!

Tags: "How-to" Makeup, Bryant Park, ChoCheng, hair, Inside the tents, Kathy Aragon, lottie, New York Fashion Week, NYFW

I had the pleasure of working with Gretchen Mol this week for the Washington D.C. Premiere of her new movie “An American Affair” out tomorrow, the 27th of February.

Gretchen is a classic beauty that has a look reminiscent of the iconic roles she tends to play. She was Bettie Page in HBO’s “The Notorious Bettie Page”  and you may recognize her past role as Roxie Hart in Broadway’s “Chicago”. In her new movie she plays a character (a mistress possibly?) that has a relation to JFK in the time leading up to his assassination.

Regardless of the complex characters Gretchen tends to play, Gretchen herself is an amazingly down to earth, talented and beautiful actress as well as proud mother.

For her movie premiere I decided to add some waves into Gretchen’s naturally fine and curly hair. I included her input in the whole process and together we decided on a hair and makeup look that would set the right tone for the evening and would work with her classic Jason Wu dress, whom you may know as the designer of Michelle Obama’s Inaugural Ball gown.

I set her hair in medium sized pin curls while doing her makeup and when we released and lightly finger combed through the curls a form started to take place. I kept more of the formed curls in the front, left the hair pretty loose and carefree on the sides and pinned any extra length up in the back, allowing some of the hair to fall naturally out of the pins.

While in the process of putting a few random photos and videos up for friends to see and I figured my “Makeup is Art” readers were considered friends as well, right? I mean, in the past 3 1/2 weeks you have seen this blog from it’s first post ever to over 360+ dedicated subscribers, not to mention over 1,000’s of individual views, not a small feat being that my last blog had all of 13 loyal and awesome readers!

So for that, I thank you and consider you a friend!  Now that we are best of pals, I have decided to bring you some photos and very informal behind-the-scenes videos of the last shoot I did with my husband, photographer Luis Aragon this past weekend. This shoot was  for a handful of Elite’s NY runway girls.  NYC F/W09 Fashion Week is right around the corner so the girls  are getting their books geared up for those designer castings. We wish them the best of luck!

On another note, I am always in love with the wonderful clothes stylist David Widjaja  pulls for us on these shoots, including the infamous green Louis Vuitton dress Madonna is wearing on the front of Louis Vuitton’s website as we speak. Let’s see how fashion savvy my readers are. Let me know if you recognize anything. I know I had to be told 1/2 the time who designed what, but I’m getting there!