Happy 2010 Everyone !!!!

I hope everyone is settled down from the Holidays and just as pumped as I am to start a whole new chapter for 2010! I have been busy so far in making some necessary changes and am ringing in the new year with a clean, uncluttered face lift to MakeupisArt.com. Trust me when I say I have already resolved to blogging on a regular schedule and have so many things up my sleeve I can not wait for you to see! I have a great feeling about this year and things have already been put in motion to make me feel that way.

Recently, our photography/makeup studio that we started a few years ago called Studio 400 had to close it’s doors suddenly at the end of  last year when our landlord we were subleasing from decided not to continue his lease. I searched diligently and came across another space in the same Lorton area the was twice the size of our last place, and was not a shared space. We asked more amazing talent to come on board and Studio 400 has opened again and has already been in action every day of the new year!

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.

I pride myself in keeping my blog personal to my experiences and to reviews of things I have tried and come to love. I try not to report on a brand new product or company that is out unless I’ve tried it myself to give you my honest opinion on it.  So, in having adapted this philosophy, it doesn’t surprise me when big news slips through my radar, but I am finding that news worth reporting somehow brings itself right into my face, such as with star stylist Ted Gibson!

During Inauguration Pre-ceremonies I had the pleasure to do makeup for Amy Brenneman, the beautiful actress from the show Private Practice. I came a bit early, chit chatted with her amazingly talented husband about how things have been in D.C. thus far while setting up and waiting for Amy to arrive. A few minutes later Amy came in with a hairstylist followed by  two videographers. I figured she was going to be doing an interview of some sorts while getting ready. It turns out the two men were actually following the hairstylist, who introduced himself to me as Ted Gibson. The two men had been collecting footage of the events he was doing including an earlier shoot he had with Ted and Caroline Kennedy for Vanity Fair.