March is the Women’s History month, it is a month to highlight and celebrate the contributions of women to events in history and current society. This women’s movement started in the 1960s when they put the spotlight on women’s issues and made it clear that historical contributions by women had been completely looked over. In 1986 activist Gerda Lerner said “When i started working on women’s history about thirty years ago, the field did not exist. People didn’t think that women had a history worth knowing.” Over the years the attitude to women has gradually changed for the better but it is still an on growing battle.
For this month i wanted to do a illustration which celebrated all women of all colour and size. I decided to illustrate an image by Hazel Hurley, taken for a beauty campaign.
![](https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/miawashbrook/files/2020/03/IMG_0642.jpg)
Recent beauty brands have become more diverse and inclusive with their campaigns and photoshoots. Fenty by Rihanna is a make up brand that started this movement, launching in 2017 with 50 foundation shades, making history for the most diverse make up line. This brand is popular for its broad inclusivity across skin tones and gender. Since, brands such as Dove, Bare Minerals etc have followed to create a more inclusive line with photoshoots which celebrate all women.
I love this set of photos by Hazel Hurley so i decided to illustrate them. I wanted to keep the drawings minimal and keep an overall muted skin colour scheme with beiges etc.
![](https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/miawashbrook/files/2020/03/IMG_0641.jpg)
![](https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/miawashbrook/files/2020/03/IMG_0640.jpg)
These are two of my illustrations from this series of photos and i love how they came out. When doing them i did add colour to the hair but i feel that this looks a lot better and works better visually.
![](https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/miawashbrook/files/2020/03/IMG_6379.jpg)
Since posting these set of illustrations on instagram it has been reposted by many accounts celebrating Women’s History Month, this account included with 101k followers which i am so happy with.