As I've mentioned previously I am quite interested in sign language and started improving my skills back when I lived in Preston at the beginning of last year. Excitingly I have started going to a basic sign language course which is really good so far. Our teacher is deaf himself and so is very precise and thorough on how the details of how exactly you position your hand and facial expressions and so on. A few sessions have passed now and have now managed to have brief conversations with him and other deaf people there, so exciting to open up a whole new word of communication and therefore the ability to meet and communicate with people who previously you could not! There are thousands of people in the UK who use British Sign Language as their first language. The idea of being able to overcome the barrier of communication with so many people is very exciting to me. However realistically it is a very difficult language to master, not least because it has so many variations - even within different areas of the UK - but some knowledge of BSL will be better than none. The classes are very fun but can also be tiring because it uses a different, more visual part of your brain!
Scare Make-up
I quite like make-up. One of my first jobs was being an Avon representative which was fun as I played with lots of make-up (probably put most of what I earned straight back into the company by buying things to try out :-P ), later on I became a The Body Shop At Home Representative which involved giving make-overs to people and so was trained up for that and enjoyed learning about how to get the best out of the products. I am also I confess a bit addicted to make-up guru videos on YouTube as they are a lot of fun to watch and get ideas from. I'm very happy not to wear it at times and I know there are a lot of issues mixed up with self-esteem and so on that you could go in to on this subject - I have a lot of opinions about these things as you could say I'm a bit of a feminist at times, but I don't want to go in to all that on here. But on a basic level lets face it wearing make-up is an integral part of my job. When I worked at the hotel I had to put make-up on everyday, and even more in the evenings to look glamorous for evening shows or socialising with guests, cabarets etc. Whilst sometimes I got fed up of putting make-up on, it did also feel nice to have a job where you got to dress up everyday. At the dungeons we put make-up on everyday too. But it is somewhat different from the make-up I wore at the hotel :-P We put on scary make-up everyday. Although I have basic training and know how to do basic effects, it is very easy to get lazy when you are putting the make-up on every morning. Making the decision to try and learn as much as I can whilst I am in this opportunity(!), I asked one of the other actors who is really good at make-up to teach me some more effective techniques. She has been teaching me how to improve on my grotesque make-up skills by experimenting with latex! Here are a few pics of what she taught me;
and my attempt...
What do you think?
Still a lot more practice to do. :-p
