Painted By Fame - My Experience/Review

On Monday 26th Sep, I travelled up to Dublin to attend the Painted By Fame masterclass by Miss Fame (@missfamenyc). If you don't know who that is - you need to! Miss Fame/Kurtis is a drag queen and makeup artist, who starred on Season 7 of RuPaul's Drag Race, is well known on social media, and creates makeup tutorials on YouTube. I attended the Dublin masterclass and wanted to share my experience...
(Sidenote: as he was not in drag, and was there as Kurtis the makeup artist, rather than Miss Fame the queen, I will be referring to him as Kurtis and "he", to keep things simple)

I was recently watching one of the tutorials on YouTube and remembered that he, Kurtis, was doing a tour of masterclasses. So I looked up the dates to see if perhaps there was one in London at some point, that I might consider going to. It turned out that in a couple weeks, there would be a Dublin class! I immediately booked off work, purchased my ticket, and began counting down the days!

So I drove to Dublin on Monday morning so that I could also pop into the Pro Beauty Show at the RDS, seeing as I would be up there on the same day. I picked up a few bits there, which you can see Here. In the afternoon I then headed into the city. The class was taking place at The Morgan Hotel in Temple Bar from 4pm to 8pm. I arrived at 3.10 so went to the bar for a cup of tea. At around 3.35 I joined the small queue of others sitting in the waiting area. I met some lovely people here - it's always nice to talk to others who have the same interests as you, especially when your closer friends might not share certain interests. At maybe 3.45, Kurtis comes walking up with his people to collect the model who was one of those waiting - a number of us were staring in awe at his presence!

At about 4.05pm we were collected and brought to the room. It was an intimate class (about 11 or 12 of us), which made it feel much more comfortable. When we checked in, we received our goodie bag of products (see photo below!) I sat in the front row for a great view (but as it was a small number, we were all fairly close up). Kurtis did apologize for the lack of food. There was a small table with tea, coffee, water, soft drinks, and a plate of biscuits. He explained that the other hotels had provided a much larger selection. I had made sure to eat before hand so I only grabbed a cup of tea during the break anyway.

And so we began. Kurtis explained everything he was doing, the products he was using, and the brushes he was using. He uses Cozzette brushes and highly recommended the full set for anyone considering them. He encouraged questions throughout, and was extremely approachable. He looked directly at each of us when talking. It felt like a friend sharing their tips rather than a high profile celeb telling us how it's done. I took note of ev-er-y-thing! I didn't want to miss a thing and wanted to be able to refer back to my notes after the fact. I also took plenty of progress photos (see photos below). It stated on the website that photography was allowed, but not video. However I was a little unsure if professional cameras (DSLRs) would be ok, as some events make the distinction and only allow phones etc. It was perfectly fine though and I could snap away throughout the class with my Canon 70D.

The first half of the class was brow blocking, base, and eyes. We took a quick break and then resumed with brows, lashes, lips and wig.

He also encouraged conversation throughout. He talked openly about his experience on RuPaul's Drag Race, tidbits about other queens, funny and interesting anecdotes, and opinions on current social media trends. So much of what he said resonated with me and made me feel like I should trust my gut more.

He spoke about being fired from Mac because his heart wasn't in retail. This year, I left a retail cosmetics job, where I had worked up from a temp to Supervisor and Store Trainer. I left because my private work was much more busy, but also because it became super retail focused, which made me uncomfortable. While I was excited about my decision and haven't looked back since, it was scary and I did realise that it might have seemed strange to an outsider. Hearing Kurtis speak about his experience and where he went from there - pursuing his artistry and creativity, reaffirmed for me that I made a great decision.

He also spoke about trends on YouTube etc., and how makeup YouTubers should be able to back up their content with skill. (He did mention a few names and examples of who can back it up and who should step it up!) Again, sometimes I feel the pressure of going with what others may want to see, or what videos/tags are popular. I realised that it is my own creativity and artistry that I should follow and focus on, or at least keep as a common thread among other videos that I enjoy.

The class finished up a little past 8pm. We were all then invited to take selfies with Kurtis and the model, Mark. As I also had my camera, one of the other attendees very kindly offered to also take a photo on that too. Kurtis himself then took photos and snapchats of the model, basically having a mini photo shoot (see photo below). It was great to watch him create cool shots. Most of us hung around to take more pictures of the makeup, some took more selfies with Kurtis, and some had him autograph things. He was very friendly and continued to chat with us. He then had an interview to do, and so I left at around 9pm.

I drove back to Cork and got home at around 12.30am (having got up that morning at 6.30am). It was a long day and I arrived home absolutely wrecked - but it was totally worth it. The knowledge, the stories, the experience - it was all fantastic. If you are a makeup artist, a makeup enthusiast, a drag queen, or a drag fan, I would highly recommend this class! Tickets for further dates are available at: missfamenyc.bigcartel.com

Photos