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Fast 5 with Becca Gilmartin
Becca Gilmartin is a Makeup and Body Artist working between Australia and the US, her work has been showcased on celebrities such as Kimbra, Dannii Minogue, Tara Moss, and Angus Stone. Becca is also the Beauty Editor of LAUD Magazine and took the title of ABIA's 2014 'Makeup Artist of the Year'. Makeup Weapons sits down with Becca to learn a little more about her body of work and her plans for the future.Interview By Sheri Vegas Makeup Weapons
Your body of work is amazing and you have worked on some insanely cool projects in insanely cool places, please tell us about a time (or several times) you thought “F*** yeah!” on the job.
Ha! The appearance from the outside is always more glamorous than the reality I assure you. Most of the time the “F*** yeah!” moments come once it is published... or months later when updating my website and I get to appreciate what happened in the chaos and I have forgotten the pain of no sleep, no light and no time.
I had a “F*** yeah!” moment when shooting for Kimbra in the Joshua Tree desert once my body art was on set and I saw how it was being shot (and I didn't stuff it up)... another “F*** yeah!” moment when shooting Kimbras 90s music video in LA and I had transitioned a glitter makeup design to a clean makeup with geometric teal eyeliner in 10 minutes and her makeup read as clean and balanced in camera... and the latest “F*** yeah!” moment was seeing L A U D magazine in print for the first time.
The creative process is different for everybody, tell us how you get your head in the game for big jobs.
Hmmm... being open to dancing with the chaos and having a lot of quiet thinking time to myself. That usually does it. Quiet time and the adrenaline of last minute brief edits and lack of time forces focus... that, and I have learned the ability of learning to clear my mind when under pressure and only letting in productive and creative thoughts... aka trusting my guts in every situation. Nothing ever runs smoothly or goes to plan so learning to deal with breakdowns in a powerful way is a golden skill to have.
You recently took up the post as Beauty Editor for Laud Magazine, tell us more about this exciting new publication and what we can expect to see within its walls.
LAUD is one of the most exciting projects I have been involved with...we are a luxury beauty magazine that reads like a fashion magazine. It is a showcase of Makeup, Hair, SPFX and body art talents to inspire and appeal to our creative eye candy whilst at the same time having a voice for our industry.
You can expect to see aspirational work by our industries best... interviews with industry masters and conversations about topics that are important to this modern world. There are comprehensive beauty notes so beauty lovers can spy on what everyone uses and we also showcase up and coming talent with our RISE section. Print is not dead so I see LAUD as a beauty publication that many artists and beauty lovers alike will use to rip pages out of to use as inspiration for their own work.
You have been rolling out master classes for quite some time now, however yours have a few more elements outside of just creative content, tell us about this?
People always ask me what my secrets are to being 'so creative' and/or getting to be involved in such great projects... so I created MUA Bootcamp that explains it all. You learn body art techniques that are used as exercises to train your hand/eye for advanced brush skill and confidence in any circumstance ( this is NOT a body art course) and I also break down exercises to help set knee knocking goals and how to achieve them. There is nothing more to it than that and trust me... I am a living example that this works.
I am a gold coast trained MUA who thought she wasn't going to get anywhere and now a MUA who now gets to travel the world, write books and be a beauty editor of an amazing magazine... it wasn't 'luck' or an 'accident'. I just practice what I preach.
You always have exciting things happening! What is next on the horizon for you?
I am moving to LA sometime this year and finally releasing my books MUA Bootcamp and 'We The Painted'...
I will travel back to Oz to run the Face2Face Makeup Awards in August at Beauty Expo and teach MUA Bootcamps... but in the immediate future we are working on issue 2 and 3 of LAUD magazine and we have some cool content coming out! Most of my energy is going into those projects at the moment... not a bad problem to have!
The Fast Five
If you could have dinner with anybody dead or alive, who would that be and why?My grandparents, Joan and Darcy as they died when I was younger and I would love to know them more. They were amazing humans.
Are you a dog or cat person?
I am an animal person full stop. You can't make those kinds of decisions between loves.
What could you absolutely not live without?
Water... thats not a sarcastic answer... I am a 2/3 litre a day girl. Also... water goes into coffee and tequila/lime/soda. I equally cannot live without those things either.
Tea or coffee?
Coffee times a million. Tea in the evening.
When was time you thought W-T-F?
The LAST time i thought this (which is about 20 times a day) was yesterday at the gym I watched WAGS on E! and that was my response to the heavily over contoured makeup on everyone. I'm talking 10 times darker than their natural colour as a ring around their faces... as dark as my long black coffee and the centre of their faces my friends flat white. What is happening? In saying that.. I haven't checked Instagram yet.
https://www.makeupweapons.com.au/blogs/news/115586755-fast-5-with-becca-gilmartin
