Maria Ortega

Bio

I am 26 years old. Originally from California, but have been living in NYC for a couple of years now. I am a make-up artist and enjoy enhancing people's natural beauty. Make-up artistry is an overlooked form of art that goes unnoticed and not appreciated as it should and deserves.

I remember growing up and wanting to do make up. I loved wearing black and always played with my head-and-shoulders-style mannequin barbies, applying different types of make-up and eyeshadow. I would sit next to my mom and watch her apply bright and elegant color eyeshadows. I loved the way she would apply her Chanel foundation with her special Chanel foundation brush and blush, lipliner, lipstick. In fact, everything my mother did was amazing to me and I would go into my play room and try out everything I saw her do, right onto my barbie. My mother knew I loved playing make-up artist, so she bought all sorts of head-and-shoulder style Barbies for me to play (practice with).

My mother placed me in Ballet classes when I was two years old. At this point, I didnt have to just imagine I was a Barbie with make-up. My mother would actually apply make-up on me for my recitals and I was beyond ecstatic! As I grew a little older, I began to apply my own make-up for my ballet and jazz dance recitals. Then, I would do all of the other dancer's make-up for each and every dance rehearsal, recital and performance. I grew to anticipate applying make-up for these events even more so than the actual dancing part

In 1997, my mother gave me the first edition hard copy book of Kevyn Aucoin's makeup book, Making Faces! It was the best gift ever and what got me started to realize that one day I would use my passion for makeup as a way to express myself and help others love themselve's more and value their beauty.



Now, here I am in the big apple. Living my dream of being a make-up artist and doing what I love best. Now, I don't use dolls as my models. Each face is a canvas and there are virtually no limits to what make-up can do to enhance, create, illuminate and/or diminish features of such individual.