Solent Goes To London

Last Friday, Ocotober 9th, we went on a trip to London to visit the National Portrait Gallery and a few makeup stores. London is my favourite city in the world and it was an amazing and fun day all together. We got to see the Tudor Portraits and get some inspiration for our projects and walked around London trying to find the stores. It's a shame we had only a few hours but I hope we will get to go on more trips like this in the future.

National Portrait Gallery 

The National Portrait Gallery

Selfie in front of the Portrait Gallery

 Beth, Laura and me (right to left) 

The National Gallery

Trafalgar Square

                                   

Review of a portrait

(source: http://hoocher.com/Portraits_of_Elizabeth_I_of_England/Portraiture_of_Elizabeth_I_of_England.htm)

This is a portrait of Elizabeth I. called "The phoenix portrait". The technique is oil on panel and the author is N. Hilliard, c. 1575. It is  named after the prominent phoenix jewel that Elizabeth is wearing on her chest which was an emblem of rebirth and chastity. She also wears a heavy jewelled collar with a red and white tudor rose in the centre. What I love about this portrait is her gown; it is described as a "Strait-gown" or "French gown". It was a front-closing gown with a tight-fitting bodice, huge sleeves and a big wide skirt that goes down from the waistline. The name "Strait-gown" comes from the term "strait bodied" which meant tight-fitting.

MAC PRO store
MAC was generous enough to give us 35% discount and the girl that worked there talked us through some products, gave us some tips about how to build our makeup kits etc.
I generally love MAC makeup counters and stores, as I said in the previous post, they give out a very sophisticated and proffesional look, and make you want to spend all of your money (haha). Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos because it was very crowded and it was quite a small room.
The products I purchased are two eyeshadows in the shades Bronze and Mythology.

Charles Fox store
I was very impressed when I walked into the store; the makeup layouts and the decorations looked amazing. There was also corner with Illamasqua products which I didn't expect to see.
I bought a very nice and soft contouring brush which I think would be a good brush to have in my makeup kit.

 MAC eyeshadows + C.Fox contouring brush