My Hair Evaluation.

Since reflecting back on the Redheads and Royalty assignment I feel I have developed and learnt a lot in terms of new techniques and hair itself, I was most intimidated to take on this project as I never been experienced or confident in hair knowledge or styling. Considering that this was a challenging assignment for me, I feel I taken on the project and completed the final assessment well. The theme of this brief was interesting for me and I enjoyed learning new techniques and skills and also recreating Elizabethan hairstyles. A technique that I struggled most with in the this brief would be creating different style plaits particularly the fishtail plait. Although I found this difficult, I made sure to practice and not get disheartened, eventually I began to feel more confident at creating plaits and I now even have a favourite style plait which is the fish tail. Factors like this also make me feel that I have developed a lot as in the final assessment I was able to form a very decent fish tail plait my partner wanted and the outcome was the best I had made compared to when creating it in practice sessions. Considering that I was nervous about this brief in the beginning, I feel that I have surprised myself with what I can create and also enjoyed it more then I thought. In some areas of this brief I think I let myself down as I hadn’t been able to attend all of the classes for the unit and many times I had practiced within class I had forgotten to photograph and document my progress. In conclusion I found this brief very enjoyable despite my limited knowledge of normal and Elizabethan hair. I feel I had good time management throughout the brief and balanced my blogs and practical work well, If I was to develop and improve my performance in this brief I would I would make sure to practice more in sessions on different hair textures, make sure to take more pictures and notes so that when I reflect back in blogs I could provide more evidence and development with my work.

Peer Assessment On me by Rebecca.

I enjoyed working with my partner; before the assessment started we hadn't spoken to each other that much so through this, a friendship has blossomed. We worked well in a pair because we took time out of lesson to practice the hair design, and communicated with each other if there were any changes to the design or any problems. I feel that she was confident in executing the design as we practiced with each other, on the 'Kate' doll and on my model. I made sure my partner was happy and confident with the design process; I made a short list of instructions and order for my hair design to make it easier for her, this then gave her more confidence to complete it on time and to the standard I wanted. I could see throughout the assessment she was working hard to get the design right to the hair chart and my explanations, she made sure the sections were neat and the messy parts were backcombed enough to stand out as much as I wanted. Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of my design and would be happy to collaborate with her again, as she works hard, practices her design techniques and is happy to take time out of her day to work with me on anything I am struggling with, and vice versa. 

Peer Assessment - Rebecca Southerden.

My partner recently practiced my final hair design, which went very well. I feel that Rebecca created the design I wanted well and had very little problems creating my design in and out of practice sessions. We actively practiced outside of studio sessions so that she felt confident enough to complete my design in the final assessment and she also made efforts to ask Lottie for tips to perfect my design when she was unsure about things. Because of this, I feel that she was very invested in my design and understood well what I wanted for my final look. Communication was good between the both of us and we actively communicated through face book daily and in person when finalizing and discussing ideas and plans. Rebecca also had very good time management in the final assessment and also when practicing my design in studio sessions with Lottie and Helen, and although my design was quite simple and didn’t take long to create she made sure to perfect the design and her techniques used so that it looked exactly how I wanted. I feel that she has also shown development in terms of creating my look as whenever she found something difficult to create in my design she never gave up but just continued to practice until I was happy and she was confident she could recreate the look comfortably. For me this not only showed we again had good communication but that she was also very reliable and invested in my design as much as me. Overall, I feel that Rebecca was a very reliable and great partner to have for this hair brief and I am more than happy with my final outcome and the work we had practiced together.

Final Hair Assessment images for my partner Rebecca.

These images are of the final hair design I created for my parter. The final assessment was very successful and I have created a previous blog post discussing my self evaluation on the assessment. 

Practicing Rebeccas design for the first time.

Today I practiced Rebecca's Elizabethan hair design for the first time. We practiced this design during a practical session with Helen. Due to Rebbeca having dreadlocks in her hair, she had to find and bring in a model for me to practice on work on for the final assessment. So in this practical session I worked on the model provided to me, my models hair texture was very long, thick and straight in texture. When I first saw the models hair I thought it was really beautiful but the thought of attempting to create my partners design with her hair length was intimidating. I felt intimidated because prior to this practice session I had practiced curling long, thick hair on a classmate and the outcome was that it was possible but very time consuming. I started to create my partners design on my model as instructed and had her design on the mirror which helped guide me. My partner had already decided that she wanted the hair texture of her design to be in a curl texture only but, as I started to create the design, adding volume with the technique of back combing and also curling and pinning the hair individually It became impossible to create the shape of the buns my partner wanted with the hairs texture. Helen came over and observed the technique, design and outcome I was trying to achieve and suggested to my partner that I may be better of crimping the hair before curling and backcombing it as my models hair was very soft and it would need more then backcombing for it to hold the shape I needed to create the two buns.

Unfortunately, I was unable to try this method in the practical session as styling my models hair alone had taken up a lot of time, this is something I had begun to worry about in consideration of the final assessment. In response to this Helen suggested we find a way to prep my models hair before hand prior to the assessment so that I could save time and concentrate on creating the actual design. I felt very relived when Helen said I would be able to do this, but the only thing I then had to worry about was fitting in time to prep more models hair before the assessment and making sure the three of us were all available to do this as the model usually has lectures the day of the assessment. In response to this we all looked at our schedules and realised me and my partner were available but my model wasn't. In response to this I emailed Sharon to see if it would possible to leave earlier from the morning seminar we had with her, the day of the assessment so that I could prep my models hair in the morning before the assessment. Fortunately, my models lecture was cancelled and also we didn't have to attend Sharon's lecture that day as there were only tutorials. Next time I practice my partners design, I will use the technique Helen suggested, crimping the hair first and then curling so that when I begin to back comb the hair the shape  will stay intact and be more manageable for me to form into the correct shaped buns.

1 to 1 with helen

I recently had a one to one tutorial with Helen during a practical session. In this tutorial I got to discuss and show Helen the blogs I had completed and then talk about ways to develop them. Helen suggested that I develop my blogs by going through my course step by step so that I could use it in conjunction with my current blogs as a checklist. I told Helen that I felt I had completed most of the important blog posts but when I had shown her, she said I was missing one more design of my Katie Doll head I created outside of practical sessions and also needed some more Elizabethan research on portraiture, hairstyles and techniques. 

In response to my tutorial, I made sure to complete these blog posts as soon as possible by either working on my laptop at home or going to the library. Since this tutorial I have managed to do a few blog posts which discuss Elizabethan hairstyles, portraiture and methods and also alongside some contemporary examples I found interesting. The only thing I feel has let me down whilst creating my blog posts for hair is that I haven't always remembered to take pictures of hairstyles I had created in practical lessons which show me practicing the techniques learnt from Lottie and Helen. 

Working on a model instead of a Katie Head.

In todays practical session with Lottie, we got the chance to create and practice any style we wanted to on our partners hair. I decided to use my peer; Tonya's hair as she was had really long and thick weave installed into her hair which I thought would be interesting to play with as the Katie Doll has quite short hair. I aimed to curl the whole of her head and then form the hair into a Elizabethan bun shape with padding. I started by parting the hair into two sections from the centre of her head, sectioning the hair into small parts so I could curl a nice amount of hair individually. At first I felt quite intimidated to do this as I had never worked on a model before and only a dolls head so this was completely new to me. Using the babyliss curlers I began curling strands of her hair and then clipping it straight after wards to maintain the curl; Lottie had demonstrated this in a previous lesson.

I felt fairly confident after a while of curling quite a lot of her hair, but began to realise that the length of her hair was making it very difficult to curl the hair in a quick pace. Unfortunately, I was only able to curl half of Tonya's hair as it was very long and thick. Lottie came and observed the work and technique I had practiced and said that the curls I had managed to create were good and made with the right technique, but agreed that as the hair is so long it is more time consuming to style what I wanted. If I was to redo this hairstyle I aimed to do with Tonya as my same model, I would estimate first how much of the hair would be showing once formed into a Elizabethan bun and then after knowing this I would only curl certain parts of the hair that would be showing the most. I feel this method would be less time consuming and also allow me add curls after forming my desired shape if needed. Annoyingly, I forgot to take an image of the outcome of the hair.