Tutorial with Elizabeth

Now with some substance and direction to my final major project I felt it would be beneficial to seek some critical analysis and advice on my ideas and blog so far. As my assigned mentor Jane was busy I then had a very enlightening discussion with Elizabeth who has some amazing experience in the beauty industry. 

A big concern of mine was that my project was starting to become a series of looks such as seven deadly sins which I am very aware has been very overdone in past years. The reason behind my choices in using defensive powers as a underlining theme was to be able to give the viewer the ability to feel those powers too through make up and clothing building up there confidence and self belief like super hero costumes do for children. I was worried that this wasn't becoming apparent. 

Elizabeth understood this problem and suggested to make my project more academic and researched to have more of a symbolic or visual language using symbols such as colouring and shapes running through out my images. I really liked this idea as it made it far more interesting and gave each image more of a purpose and understanding of each theme. She also suggested to research into the symbolist art movement which took place after the impressionist movement in france in the 19th century. From this I felt as though she really understood my concept and what I am aiming to achieve. I also think that will be an excellent way to make my designs more insightful and purposeful to the specific super power through symbolism. Another thing she suggested was to look into Saints. She mentioned that saints too have super abilities similar to the ones I am hoping to personify. To create a saint like feel to my image I must relay this idea back to my photographer to test that light, soft lighting for some of the images. 
From just researching from a short space of time I have already discovered a few saints that are relevant to my concept. 

1. St.Joseph of Cupertino - Flying abilities 
2. Christina the Astonishing - Immortality
3. St. Catherine of Alexandria - Psychic abilities 
4. St. Padre Pio - Healing, Teleporting and Psychic abilities 

I now intend to research further into this historical art movement to see how I can incorporate this element before I begin to design face and hair charts for each look. I also plan to watch the suggest BBC documentary 'The History of Art in Three Colours' and start to apply my own visual and symbolic language through out my work.