A Gothic-horror scarecrow makeup design has earned St. Clair Esthetician student Sarah Vasily nationwide praise after she won Best Upcoming Artist in the Twisted World of Artistry Contest for NYX Comestics Canada.
Vasily, 29, is a full-time student in the Esthetician program at St. Clair, who grew up in the Windsor area and graduated from the Global Makeup program at Blanche Macdonald College in Vancouver in 2014.
After living and working as a professional makeup artist in Toronto for several years, Vasily returned to Windsor and enrolled in the Esthetician program at St. Clair to round out her artist skillset. It was in one of her classes on South Campus where she first heard about NYX Cosmetics Canada's Twisted World of Artistry Contest from one of her instructors.
"They asked to us recreate a character from The Wizard of Oz and then submit it via video. I was really excited to put my own spin on an iconic character and turn it into something beautiful and gory," said Vasily. "Once I heard about the contest, I had to enter it, and my teachers all pushed me to do it too. The makeup took me about four hours and I was very happy with how it turned out."
Vasily based her makeup creation from the design of the Scarecrow character from The Wizard of Oz. Instead of sticking to the classic look, Vasily showed her off her Gothic makeup skills and decided to give the scarecrow a distinct horror-movie look and named her creation, Hay Bae. Shortly after she submitted her demonstration video of the design to the Twisted World of Artistry Contest, she learned she had won Best Upcoming Artist.
"When I heard I had won this award between thousands of people across Canada, I was so excited I started to cry," said Vasily. "I've always loved makeup and I'm pretty confident in my abilities but there was always this doubting voice because there are hundreds of thousands of people who submitted. But I'm so glad I did it. This has given me more confidence to do really creative artistic looks and keep posting them and sharing them with people."
In their caption showcasing Vasily's makeup demonstration video selecting her as the winner of the Best Upcoming Artist Award, NYX Cosmetics Canada said they were speechless with her Hay Bae creation. Dozens of comments on Instagram and various others across social media platforms have praised Vasily's talents and marveled at the detail she exhibited into her original makeup creation.
"What I have learned from this is just to go for it and be yourself, and anything you love, don’t be afraid to put it out there," Vasily said. "Everything requires that level of creativity. If you have an idea, put that idea out there. Because you never know who else you will be inspiring or helping by putting it out there."
- Brett Hedges