'Elizabeth' 1998

As homework, in order to ease us into the rather mammoth task of researching the Elizabethan era, we were asked to watch the film ‘Elizabeth’ starring Kate Blanchett, released in 1998. Due to the films date of release it was quite a modern and contemporary representation of fashion standards and beauty from Elizabeth’s time as a princess and throughout the earliest and some of the most important years of her reign.



Having researched the Elizabethan era further prior to watching the film, I realised there were deeper meanings to certain scenes in the film that had gone straight over my head beforehand. For example, one of the first scenes in the films shows a young protestant woman getting her light auburn hair quite violently cut from her scalp prior to being burnt at the stake. I first assumed the removal of her hair would have been to humiliate the girl and take away her sense of personality, as I had seen a similar scene in an episode of Game of Thrones where the act was carried out for this purpose. However, I found that it was instead to do with the colour of the woman’s hair. In Elizabethan times, red was a very valuable colour of hair to have as it was at the height of fashion, therefore it was more likely to have been removed and then harvested for wig making for those wealthy enough to afford such accessories.



At first my focus was entirely on the Queen herself and the way that she was being portrayed in the adaptation of her time of the throne. Within history her style and her image became her trademark and her portraits were very important to this as they helped her to become somewhat of a ‘royal pin up’ during her era. You can see the relationship between the portraits painted of her throughout her life and the way she was styled based on these images throughout the film. When Elizabeth is shown at her youngest, she has been given a quite a youthful version of the styles worn during the Elizabethans that symbolised the standards of beauty at the time. Her hair is shown as being quite a yellow blonde with warm red undertones, making her at the time a celestial beauty. The lower layers of her hair fall quite straight naturally with the front layers plaited and

pinned softly into buns either side of the crown of her head. The whole look softens her features making her look more childlike, naïve and innocent. Because of her hair colour her skin appears to be naturally very pale, which at the time was a look women were constantly trying to achieve through the use of many different and sometime disgusting concoctions. There are no blemishes or scars on the face which also suggests her youth, only a soft rogue blush on her cheeks and on her lips.  As well as this, her eyebrows and eyelashes are very fair as a result of her hair colour, making them both look almost none existent. However, women during the renaissance would pluck out their brows in order to make the forehead appear higher than it really is, as it was believed that the taller the individuals forehead, the wiser the person was. This first look has some similarities to Elizabeth’s look in the final scenes of the film, however some features have been exaggerated in a way that makes her look a lot older, harsher and more powerful.



Throughout the film I came to realise that colours of individuals clothing, hair and makeup were used to express and emphasize the divide between classes. Queen Mary is shown in her few scenes during the film wearing all black, a colour that suggests power, most probably used intending to reiterate her valued position as the Queen of England, over powering the protestant up rise. The Queens advisors were also clothed in black garments; this could have been in order to lead the viewer to making the association between the Queen and these individuals or it could have to show them as having almost as much power and control as the Queen herself. There is a dissimilarity of the dark clothing Mary wore compared to the garments worn by Elizabeth throughout the film. The scene that I first noticed this in, Mary was wearing black as she always did, while Elizabeth was wearing a sapphire green dress, a colour that held quite some religious symbolism during the renaissance period. It was also a colour of the very wealthy, as only those with power and high status could afford to wear green, re-establishing Elizabeth’s high status as Queen/Princess. Mary is also depicted with no eyebrows and therefore a high forehead, as I mentioned before a high forehead was believed to be a sign of being very knowing, suggesting that she wanted her people to see her as a knowledgeable and wise dictator; this being one of the very few things that both Mary and Elizabeth had in common in terms of styling.



All of the extras in the film wore clothes in colours that were fitting to their character and the occasions as well, even if they were just part of the background. For example, peasants were always shown wearing clothes in colours of beige and browns, in shabby and rough materials, whereas those individuals attending occasions with Elizabeth all wore bright colours and a large amount of jewellery but never anything quite as lavish as Elizabeth, showing her status over others.    

The scene in which Elizabeth is draped in the ermine fur and wearing a gown of gold was one of the first scenes where I really began to notice her transformation. This is a portrayal of the gown Queen Elizabeth wore in one of her most famous portraits, painted in 1585, referred to as the ‘Ermine portrait’. Despite her still having a very loose and natural hair style, quite similar to the one in her very first scenes, paired with neutral makeup keeping her looking very youthful; the costume is so much more elaborate compared to everything else she had worn so far in the film enforcing her new position as Queen. In the renaissance era, it was believed that an ermine

would die before allowing its pure white coat to be besmirched. When being chased by hunters, ermine would supposedly turn around and give itself up to the hunters rather than risk soiling itself. The throw around her shoulders is made to look like ermine fur dyed with black spots, and her gown made up of various shades of gold, as gold is a color that often represents wealth and wisdom, suggesting that these are reasons for her place on the thrown.



This is one of the last scenes that we see Elizabeth looking youthful and naturally beautiful, as in a scene that follows this, all of her hair is cut off and she makes a transformation. From this point onwards she wears peri style wigs that are adorned with jewels and accessories, tangled into intricate plaits and buns, braided with contrasting ribbons of greens and gold. In truth, Queen Elizabeth actually had alopecia and this was her reason for wearing wigs, as years of wearing elaborate hair pieces that were the height of renaissance fashion at the time permanently damaged her scalp.



The final transformation scene is where we are really able to see the Queen Elizabeth that we are used to seeing in her portraits and imagery. Her hair is of a darker, more vibrant red, shaped into a rounded, voluminous up do, covered in pearls to represent her virginity. Her hair line is strong and defined, making her forehead appear a lot larger. Her face is completely white and her brows near to invisible, with a rouge blush on her cheeks well as on her lips. She wears a blue gown in this scene in a shade similar to that of the Virgin Mary’s, paired with many pearls in order to reinstate her name as ‘The Virgin Queen’ as well as showing her value for the catholic religion. This final adaptation of Elizabeth’s look made Kate Blanchette seem almost alienesque and completely unrecognisable as herself. The pure white of her skin is another symbol of her purity in her marriage to God and her devotion and loyalty to her religion. As part of her transformation, when Elizabeth cuts off and as  her hair, similar to what nuns would have done during this era, and the application of the heavy white lead makeup suggest her purification as during this scene she also states that she wants to ‘become a virgin again’.  

Self Assessment

Over the past couple of weeks I have come to realise which of the practical and academic skills that I currently possess that may come to help me in my work over the next three years. I have also been able to highlight those which I previously thought would be a lot more use than they actually have been so far. Whether I will be able to utilise them in the future I am yet to find out.


Prior to coming to Solent, I was asked to attend an interview in order to achieve a place here. For the interview I prepared a portfolio that showed how the topics that I was studying at the time and the subjects that I had studied in lower years of work, would help me in the years to come if I were to gain a place here. This self assessment was somewhat accurate, however, I have been able to put my skills into practice since this point in time and have come to find in more detail which of them I can apply to my studies here and those that I could really do with improving upon.


At A-level I was studying Psychology, Business, Sociology and Textiles. I initially thought that the skills I had gained during my study in the first three subjects wouldn't be of any use for this course, however the essay structuring and writing that I put into practice over the past two years has already been helpful when writing reviews as well as writing my blog during the past couple of weeks.
Furthermore, I put these techniques to use while writing about my thought process when creating pieces of work for my portfolio based on the artist Andy Warhol, who's work I studied at GCSE. I was able to analyse his work and interpret it myself, using different mediums and my own style.
This is another skill that I have realised will definitely be useful to me in the future, as I will be looking at other photographers work and need to understand or interpret for myself what the designer and photographer were trying to portray through the image in order to maybe replicate a similar style. Here is the piece that I wrote for my portfolio earlier this year:

After going to the Tate Gallery in Liverpool the artist whose work intrigued me the most was that of Andy Warhol. Through the use of silk screening Warhol created a number of pieces that inspired me; his Marilyn Monroe pop art piece being the most striking. By layering different complimentary colours he created a piece that he describes as ‘strong, giving more of an assembly line effect.’ I was interested to find out whether I was able to create a similar piece using the same concept. I began by playing around with different colours and studying a colour wheel, this gave me the basic knowledge of what colours complement each other and which are contrasting. I wanted to achieve a piece that looked as similar to Warhol’s work as possible but with a modern twist, however I did not have access to print screen facilities or tools so I decided that seeing as modern was what I was trying to portray, modern technology was what I was going to use. I began by finding myself an image of someone in a similar role to that of Marilyn Monroe in her era, a strong, talented, well known and respected female role model; therefore I chose Madonna. But her similar personality traits are not the only reason why Madonna was my choice of model for this piece. Her style I found was much alike Marilyn’s with minor changes suited to the 70’s trends. She wears the same curled blonde hair, beauty mark, ruby red lips. I used a Photoshop tool in order to change the colours of the image and isolate the light and dark shades in the picture making it look like Andy’s work.   

Other pieces that caught my attention were the images he produced of Elizabeth Taylor and Elvis Presley. He used a similar technique to that he used when producing the silk screenings of Marilyn but using less block colour. Instead he isolated the shadows from the image and then layered in colour underneath or in some cases just used the isolated shadow alone.  I tried to create similar pieces using a number of different methods; I found that holding up an image printed onto a normal piece of cartridge paper I was able to see the shadows and dark spots of an image much easier, making it quite a simple task for me to create a template to work from. I played around with both matte and gloss acrylic with and without a colour. For the few coloured pieces I did I used both ink and water colour. The large piece that I created using a template and layering sponged watercolour over a template I thought looked a lot like the work of

Michael Murphy. Although both materials create a washed out look I preferred the impact of black over white and how strong and clean the contrast in shade made the image look, because of this I continued to work without colour for numerous pieces.  The final image that I worked on in the style of Andy Warhol was using a black kohl pencil. The method itself made me wonder about shadows. The way that the kohl smudged giving both harsh, dark lines and soft, lighter lines made me think about shadows and the way they can be harsh and soft, how they can make things seem different from our view of reality. Up until this point I had only been working with shadows in a very basic way and my work although accurately portraying Andy Warhol began to seem very flat. I decided from this to research into artwork related to and working with shadow and light play.

Chiaroscuro is the treatment of light and shade in artwork. I was fascinated by the Chiaroscuro photography of Rankin. His work has been used for some of the biggest brands and publications and he has shot various covers for fashion magazine such as Elle and German Vogue for example.  One of the images I found of Rankin’s that spoke to me most I have replicated in a large piece using pencil drawing and a wash over wax. The image was taken for a spread advertising Rebellips which shows a photograph of a beautiful woman torn in half to reveal a bare human skull. The message that I took from this photograph was

that beauty is only skin deep and that we are only what we make ourselves. Everyone would look the same if our ‘masks’ were to be torn back like the image shows. It showed such beauty next to something that most would consider grotesque, however both of the same thing, the same person.  I used soft and smudged pencil lines to portray the delicate, soft and pretty lines of the woman’s face; I paired this method with the use of a wax base with a teabag wash. This gave a discoloured and grim look to the skull helping me show the imperfection of the bone in contrast with the flawlessness of the models skin side by side. 

After doing this piece I thought I should play around with a variety of materials. I used some of the same materials I had used on my Andy Warhol work such as water colour and kohl for example; however I used different methods in order to portray a softer and more natural look like in the photography I was basing my work on. After completing various pieces based on the work of numerous different chiaroscuro photographers and artists such as Edvard Munch and Angelo

Pannetta,  I decided to use a completely different medium; photography. I was interested to see first-hand how the light worked with the dark and how I could make it play off of the face and body in order to be able to portray this accurately in my art work.  I had had very little experience using a DSLR camera before but from countless hours being engrossed watching Americas Next Top Model I knew what I was doing in front of the camera at least.  I started by modelling myself and using the self-timer feature on the DSLR. Although I liked the way a lot of the photos turned out I found that it was difficult for me to see how the light moved being in front of the camera. Taking pictures of models helped my understanding develop a lot further as I was in control of the light and I was able to manipulate it to look the way that I wanted it to.

Finally, I created 3 pieces that I thought well portrayed all of my research, method and material trial and also skill, each showing the versatility of the light and shade.

This was the only written piece in my portfolio, as although I have quite a lot of experience in writing having taken numerous essay based subjects in the past two years of study, I felt that my art work was where my strengths and preferences lay and that my writing could use some improvement. Therefore, most of my portfolio consisted of images that I myself had created or shot. 

I have had very little experience in photography and have little to no knowledge of how to use most cameras but I feel that I am able to capture an impressive image when given assistance in the technological aspect of the shoot. I feel that I have an eye for creating the appropriate lighting having done quite a lot of research and replication of chiaroscuro art work in the past few years, however, my technical photography ability is something that I really need to improve on.

Furthermore, my retouching and image editing ability is very basic and I knew before coming here that the low level of skill I have in this area already needs more focus, especially for the field that I am trying to achieve work in. 

All of the images in my portfolio had no retouching done as I liked the look of the raw images and in all honesty I didn't really know where to begin in terms of retouching any of them.

 I worked with two different models on the shoots that I carried out for this unit and asked for their feedback on how they felt the images turned out, how comfortable they felt on the shoot and how well I was able to give them instruction on set. All of the feedback was very positive, mostly about my ability to communicate my ideas to them and what I was aiming to achieve from the shoot. This is an attribute that I thought would be vaguely applicable on the course but since creating my portfolio and during the two weeks I've spent here I have realised that this is a skill that I will value over some others that I thought that may have been more important. For example, my previous experience in hair dressing, although I feel it has given me an upper hand in some practice, I felt previously that it would be a lot more useful than it has been so far as we are being taken back to basics and learning skills, often using different techniques than I'm used to.

I showed some of my hair styling work in my portfolio as I thought that it was beneficial to already have some experience in this area when going in to hair design as a degree.

For this part of my portfolio I showed some of the typical styles that I would be asked to do in the salon. As most of my clients were little girls due to the fact that I wasn't officially trained as a hair dresser or stylist they were quite basic and childish designs, mostly based on princess themed styles. The images that I drew besides the photos of my designs were how I would develop them to be more suited to different occasions, for example, editorial or bridal hair.

Another piece that I completed for my portfolio tied in the experience I have in creating textile pieces with my passion for makeup and hair design. I showed the fashion designs that I created paired with a hair and makeup look suitable for each garment. I kept my looks  simple, neutral and subtle because my inspiration was the Victoria's Secret fashion show. In this scenario the garment would be the main focus of the audience, rather than the makeup and hair styling, therefore I needed to keep the style natural in order to do this. My ability to understand how to create focus in my designs is a skill I believe I valued before starting this course and even more so now, having started to increase my knowledge in the subject.

Overall, I feel that my writing and my technological skills in photo editing and photography itself are my main focus for improvement this year. Obviously I will be improving other skills along the way such as my hair styling and makeup application abilities but I feel that I will be able to apply myself more efficiently having identified where my weaknesses lie and what aspects of my learning I really need to improve upon directly.