One of the wonderful things about being a makeup artist is that this career can take you to unimaginable places, meeting amazing people who inspire you, and creating unique career paths that still allow creativity, but in a way you may not have planned. 

Lisa Marie Dennis hadn’t initially planned on the road she has taken in makeup artistry, but after exploring her creativity and continuing to pursue what she enjoyed and was good at, it brought attention to her skills, and naturally carved out a very unique career as a makeup artist.

Starting out, Lisa knew she loved makeup and wanted to learn the professional skills that a makeup school offered. In her search for the right program, she found The Art of Makeup School and enrolled in the 4-week Fashion Makeup Artistry certificate program. She was living in an RV on the road with her husband, a full-time professional white water kayaker, and had to drive from the East Coast across country to get to us. It was May 2020 and the world was in the midst of changing in a big way. The pandemic had already taken over and we were forced to shut our doors. In order to accommodate our eager students, we moved the program online. Lisa began the program virtually inside the RV while on the road until they arrived in Bend, OR. They stayed in Bend until we had the green light to mask up and have class in person. When we finally did, they travelled the rest of the way to Portland and the students finally got to meet and practice the skills they learned online on each other.

Like most of us who do makeup, and especially beauty, we are mesmerized by glitter, sparkle and shine.  Lisa is no different. She began to explore beauty brands that emphasized eyeshadow palettes that sparkled, and she tried it all on.  Looking in the mirror wasn’t enough though. She wanted to share what she saw and that’s what she did.  Just before attending The Art of Makeup, she set up an account on Instagram.

Being on the road all the time and getting to see beautiful locations made life one big adventure, but it wasn’t ideal for a free-lance makeup artist, so she had to be inventive.  She figured out the best lighting location in her RV and began taking videos and photos applying eye makeup on herself.  She started out with just her phone. She then invested in The Makeup Light and a Sony camera.  It wasn’t until she moved into a house that she created a studio and invested in a high-end macro lens and professional lighting that could truly document the application while capturing the sparkle. If you have any experience with photography and lighting, you know this is no easy feat, but Lisa mastered it.  She regularly started posting the soothing and satisfying application of shimmery eyeshadow and she got noticed! She got noticed so much, that some of her followers began trying to copy her.

One of her favorite artists and brands, Danessa Myricks reached out to her.  She told her she wasn’t able to capture the sparkle of her products as well as Lisa had and asked her if she could purchase her videos for her own website!  Well, she did! If you go to the Danessa Myricks website, you will find several of Lisa’s videos.

Lisa is not exclusive to Danessa Myricks, so she decided to pursue other brands that could benefit from her macrophotography and makeup skills, and she succeeded!  You will also find her videos on Iconic London as well as other smaller brands that benefit from Lisa’s ability to show true texture and what the pigment looks like in person.

If you want to see more of Lisa Dennis’ incredible close ups and videos, be sure to check out her Instagram page @lisamariedennis. She’ll introduce you to all kinds of beautiful eye products and how they look applied up close.

It is so exciting to see so many career paths that The Art of Makeup School graduates have taken, because there are so many ways you can go.  Lisa especially shows us that if you open your mind to finding your own path, you can create a niche that is pretty darn unique!