From scaring her mum with makeshift scars to transforming actors into ogres and vampires, Gayle Jones has built a career around turning faces into art… and now she is turning her skills towards young trick-or-treaters ahead of Halloween.
Gayle, who will be holding workshops for children aged eight to 17 at the Arts Centre next week, told Express that she first became interested in makeup as a child.
“My cousin had a massive make-up purse, and whenever she came to visit, I laid everything out on the floor and would sit and look at it.”
She later completed a makeup course in England and explained that her skills and passion continued to grow afterwards.
“The thing that I discovered with make-up is that it’s actually completely innovative; you can do really quite elaborate makeup with the simplest of tools.
“You can create absolutely fantastic realistic scars, which I used to do to scare my mum, using a bit of highlighter and lip pencils – and it just went from there!”
Whilst living in Jersey, Gayle frequently did wedding and bridal makeup looks, make-up for the Jersey Amateur Dramatic Club and the Jersey Green Room Theatre Club, working on their production of Shrek last year.
But, more recently, she’s expanded her skills to helping Islanders prep for Halloween, holding workshops specialising in spooky make-up.
Last year’s workshop consisted of a zombie makeup tutorial.
As Gayle recalled, no participant ended up looking like another, with everyone encouraged to let their imagination and creativity run free.
This year’s workshop for younger children will focus on skeletons, Día de los Muertos-style “candy skulls” and other ghoulish glam make-up looks using professional materials ranging from liquid latex to stage blood.
And no one should be intimidated if they don’t feel they have artistic skill – as Gayle said: “I describe [makeup] as painting by numbers; you’ve got the outline, you just need to be able to colour it in!”
GET INVOLVED…
Both workshops will be taking place at the Jersey Arts Centre, starting at 13:00 and finishing at 16:00.
- Thursday 30 October: Horror makeup for 13-17 year-olds.
- Friday 31 October: Skeleton makeup for 8-12 year-olds.
Find out more here.
