Hello world!

Hi there,
My name is Tyrel Boelsma, I'm a 24 year old boy and I live in New Westminster, BC with my partner, Taylor. I have many passions in life (writing being the most prominent), but more and more always seem to pop up for me. Recently my friend Aja (who took makeup at Vancouver Film School while I was doing screenwriting) started doing vlogs on YouTube where she reviews beauty products and does tutorials on achieving makeup looks. Her videos are very informative and her approach is wonderfully experimental (probably because she was a science nerd before she was a makeup nerd). Through those I started watching a lot of tutorial videos and my newfound interest in makeup appeared!

I've always had an interest in colors and shading and I guess I've also always had an interest in how makeup works too. Thinking back I can remember always having such an interest in how much of a difference a little makeup could make when my mom was going out for a date with my father: a simple eyeliner, a dab of eye-shadow, and a dark lipstick always made me do a double-take, "Mom?".

I'm not heavy into drag or anything, but I do play a girl on my youtube series "Stupid Girl", so I've had minor experience with makeup from that. My sister, Angela, and friend, Larissa, gave me some basic tips and gave me their hand-me-down makeup that they didn't use before I started playing Ebony, but I always did something extremely simple on her. I also have a Frank-N-Furter costume from the Rocky Horror Picture Show that I bring out every once in a while so I'd attempted to do his makeup (which is NOT easy, btw).

Anyway, I've always kept my eyes open for wonderful looks and I try to compliment people when I feel their makeup is just superb. I usually stop and ask "How did you achieve that?" which is always rewarded with a happy response and a quick overview of how they did it.

So, about a week ago, I started going through tutorials on YouTube and decided to try and follow them with what I've got lying around. My first attempt was actually pretty decent and I got some favorable comments from friends on facebook. I mean it wasn't great by any means, but for a first try it didn't look too bad:

So I decided to try more. Something that's always interested me is "smokey eyes" I just love that look when put into the right context, so I tried it, now please keep in mind that I really don't have the best products here and that these were my first attempts... So, I only had black, no greys/silvers, so I decided to just use the greens and blues I had do try and immitate it the best I could:

Meh, I thought... This sucks. I didn't have proper brushes either, so I was using paint brushes that were all the wrong sizes and just trying to work with what I had. I also hadn't plucked my eyebrows yet :( Anyway though, I tried using the black on the other eye and shading with it...

"Much better, not great, but an improvement, so keep going Tyrel!" is what I thought and decided to carry on with it... Read on and follow my journey!

Love you all,
Tyrel