Yurena del Cano, makeup artist. Interview conducted by @loretosocorro
In addition to hiding tiredness and raising our self-esteem, makeup serves to express our personality and/or creativity. Carnival in the Canary Islands would be unthinkable without the effects that people like Yurena del Cano think of and create on faces and bodies.
Yurena, did studying at the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria School of Art help you become a professional makeup artist?
I studied artistic baccalaureate although, really, I did not learn to make up there. It helped me to approach the specific makeup courses in a different way, to have references and to explore in a self-taught way, too. I learned a variety of techniques and types of paints with which to later tackle things like body makeup.
How did you learn to make up?
Almost twenty years ago, which was when I started, I took intensive courses in makeup and aesthetics. I remember a very interesting makeup training with Body Painting and similar things. Of course, without neglecting continuous training: here and traveling outside the islands, to learn and to refresh myself.
Is that desire to continue learning the key to your progress?
I do it because I like to learn new techniques to cover more things, but the great teacher is practice. Doing a lot of makeup and getting to know different skin types, people and styles is essential.
Body or face makeup? Which one do you feel fuller with?
How difficult…! -Yurena laughs and answers emphatically – when I feel full, it is when they let me be creative and I can work using my fantasy, making the most of each body or, in social makeup, if I am not limited and I can express myself by bringing out the best in each face.
Have you ever taught about makeup?
I was teaching for years at the European School «More and Fashion» and, what I told the students, was that they let the face and morphology of each person speak to them, to know what they had to do, search, highlight… Achieving the fusion between the person wearing makeup and the makeup artist…
It is an art that adapts to the diversity of faces and bodies…
Individualized, analyzing the anatomy and according to the type of body, to try to make it as aesthetic as possible.
Do different skin tones influence your makeup?
That only happens in social makeup. In a corporeal one, the chromatic range is not taken into account, related to the color of the skin.
The colors that you love the most, to use in body makeup, what are they?
Indigo blue or violet, although I have very clean colors on my face. I don't like to put many colors in one eye, unless it is required...
What are clean colors?
Well, I'm not much of putting blue, green... bright colors in the eyes. I seek to highlight natural beauty and mark with good eyeliner. I feel that those strong colors overshadow; especially when the person is pretty and wears social makeup. I like to highlight the beauty of her features: lips, eyes...
When it comes to body makeup, I do like to play more with the complementary ones.
What if it's fantasy makeup?
There, I'm going crazy...! -Yurena laughs with the desire of someone who knows she is full of imagination and loves the art of makeup-
With your creativity and colors, what are you capable of putting on makeup?
Everything from baby bellies, FX -Special effects-, characterization that involves the use of prostheses and little things like that... Everything.
For the characterization of characters, what materials do you use, apart from paints?
If volumes are worked, it is done with various materials such as latex, silicones. Others, which are worked with acetone and blend very well with the skin. There is a wide range of professional glues to apply the prostheses, and you have to make them thoroughly so that they hold up.
Do you make them or buy them and then adapt them?
Both things, the last one I did was for a play: I had to turn some young girls into old ladies and I considered doing them myself; so I started and did the work of creating the molds and everything else, until I took them out...
When you reconstruct a face and completely transform a person, how do you feel?
I really like to enjoy the process and, of course, the result. I recently had an assignment for a team of actors who were supposed to be rats. Studying the character and the details was a job that I liked and, when it is finished, it is very beautiful.
That previous design process, what is it like?
There are easy things, of course, but when it comes to a job for a series, the finish is very demanding. And it is that the camera catches everything, that is why it is necessary to study in depth even the smallest detail. For example: with the rats you had to find the right tone, because you work with chroma key, make tests, sketches, contrast with the directors and reach agreements. The work is enhanced by the contributions and the previous tests.
Yurena, what has been the greatest difficulty and the greatest achievement you have had in your career, so far?
Of the challenges that I have set myself, I prefer the project that I just mentioned to you because, precisely, I had to characterize a rat that they had experimented with in the laboratory and it had to have very complex facial features: it had to be asymmetrical and horrifying, but at the same time believable. This cost me a lot and when I see it, even today, it's because that face is so grotesque that I'm not sure if I finish liking it...
On the other hand, I am very happy with the make-up that I carried out with the actress Iris Díaz, where I turned her into an endearing rat and I was very happy with the result obtained.
This series, as you can see, has given me both: an enormous difficulty with that rat that everyone loves but I haven't finished watching and feeling proud with the makeup for Iris Díaz -actress of the series Hierro-, because I think I was able to get a very good result.
Where can we see that series of rats?
It hasn't been released yet. It is a series of the production company «Lo Inesperado, productions». In September it will be presented in the Parque de Santa Catalina, as a play and it is called "Ratas, un hygienic series".
Can't wait to see her and Yurena!
You have to wait a bit but it will be something spectacular.
In general, what artists and works of art inspire you?
David and also Da Vinci are my Top. On a musical level, everything from David Bowie, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. If we talk about the islands, without the slightest doubt: Nauzet Afonso, who is now a bit retired from the world of makeup, but when I met him he was in full swing, doing wonders. I admired him and I admire him a lot. He is a friend and a great professional.
What future projects do you have?
Many… on a personal level, I want to study psychology, to combine it with art and do some kind of therapy focused on this. I am sure that art can help many people who, with other means, find it difficult to express themselves and I want to do something in that direction.
The Carnival festivities are approaching and we want you to give us an artistic makeup trick and, if possible, a tip for the daily routine.
For the daily routine I will tell you to simply be constant and treat the skin with some cream, so that it does not dry out, to keep it hydrated.
As for carnival makeup, I am going to give you a simple and easy-to-use trick to create an effect on the face. It is about taking a mesh, one of those orange ones, to create a background texture, like scales: it is placed on the face and the paint is applied with a sponge on the skin and when it is removed, a very original effect remains. It is an interesting resource.
And quickly, for someone who doesn't have much technique...
Also... and, of course, don't forget to add a bit of "eye", putting on eyelashes gives a radical change in makeup.
Grateful to Yurena del Cano, we said goodbye. We will enjoy her creations at the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Carnival International Body Makeup Contest on February XNUMX. Surely her creativity will continue to accompany us in many ways. The Contest has as a novelty that the winner will be sponsored to the World Body Painting Festival in Austria.
Thank you Yurena del Cano, from Sal del Atlántico we wish you much success.
