Work Experience

We were recently invited to provide makeup artists (MUAs) at a photo-shoot collaboration by local Photographer Barbara Leatham at The Larmer Tree Gardens near Salisbury. We love to attend these kinds of events because they promote our work but more importantly provide our students with the opportunity to get real life experience of working in the industry. It is also an amazing opportunity for student and tutor to work together.

The theme was a Styled Bridal and many local business got together to provide dresses, suits, jewellery, flowers etc to make the shoot a success. We packed our cases the night before to ensure that we had everything we needed and were first to arrive at the beautiful venue, we even had time to take a walk around the garden which are stunning.

Our models were running late, having to travel from London that day so when they arrived, Briony, our trainee makeup artist and I took a model each. Our student decided prior to the day that she would carry out one of her assessments here and we have to agree that she worked very professionally. She remembered everything that she had learnt about contouring and ensuring that the makeup application was suitable for photographic purposes – as this is a different application to a normal makeup – we all remember Angelina Jolie’s makeup artist and the mistake she made on the red carpet with wrong powder !

Work experience gives trainee’s the chance to feel what it is like in industry –to work with a call sheet, finding the venue, and in this case, waiting for delayed models and then having to work fast to complete the look. At one point it was very quiet in the room, I looked up and there were about six or seven people watching intently to us working. Our student didn’t even bat an eyelid ! Our student also had to make the decision on the best place to layout the makeup table – which was also difficult because the room was beautiful but quite dark.

The experience was a good one, our student being rewarded with a yummy lunch, a passed assessment and a host of pictures to start building her professional portfolio.

Where possible Olive Training promotes learning experiences different from the rest, rather than just in the classroom it pushes students to shine.