Copy a Master

I'm very interested in Victorian art, especially the way it portrays Ophelia, the character from Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Ophelia was a very popular subject for Victorian painters.  When I saw John Waterhouse's Ophelia, it occurred to me that all the colors in the painting could be found in common cosmetics.  Ophelia is also considered a symbol of the oppression of women, and makeup is a modern tool of female oppression.  I decided to recreate the painting in makeup.
The first step was getting the makeup.  I printed out a color copy of the painting and made a list of all the colors I needed (white, green, light pink, dark pink, etc), plus whether I had them already or not.  I used my own lipstick, lip gloss, pencil eyeliner, liquid eyeliner, plus some old foundation and blush I had from acting I did when I was younger.  Needless to say, I don't actually use them anymore.  Then I went to Rite-Aid and bought eyeshadow in white, brown, green, blue, and a trio of purples.
Making the actual painting was a lot of fun.  I spent about two class periods outlining the figure and filling it in with makeup.  The shadowing was tricky, but I used a combination of green and blue and I think it turned out well.  It was also fun to make the flowers, because I got to improvise a little, like with using an eyeshadow pad to draw in blush, or making a little flower of dots using the lip gloss.
I'm proud of how the painting turned out.  I didn't capture every detail, but I like it.  If I could change anything, I think id' have erased the pencil lines I made before doing anything else, or I would have skipped using foundation.  There actually isn't any flesh tone in the painting, all her skin is illuminated white or green.