Face Charts and the Artist's Portfolio: planning a look on paper, recording it for the day, and showing the work that gets bookings
A face chart is a look on paper — placement, products, shades, order — and it does two jobs: it lets the artist plan before a face is touched, and it records a trial so the look can be reproduced exactly on the wedding morning. The portfolio is the other half of the same discipline: the work, photographed honestly in real light, organised so a bride can see herself in it. Both are what separate a professional from a talented amateur. The trial they serve is in The Bridal Consultation and Trial for Artists.
Face charts
What a chart is
A printed outline of a face — front view, sometimes with profiles and closed eyes — on paper that takes cream and powder. Blank charts are standard in training and in professional kits; an artist keeps a stack.
Planning on the chart
Before a trial, the look is drawn: where contour and blush sit for this face shape, where the depth goes for this eye shape, the liner's angle, the lip's corrected shape, the highlight points. Three or four minutes with the consultation notes beside it. The chart is then discussed with the client — a drawn plan ends more misunderstandings than a described one.
Recording on the chart
After the trial, the chart is filled as the face was: the paper lightly powdered so product grips; a wash of the base shade; contour, blush and highlight placed with brushes; the eye built shade by shade; the lip drawn with the liner used. In the margins, in order of application: primer, base shade(s) and mix, corrector, concealer, powder, contour, blush, highlight, brow product, each eye shade and its zone, liner, kajal, mascara, lashes, lip liner, stain, lipstick, spray — by brand, name and shade. Plus: skin notes (type, sensitivity, allergies), the client's dislikes, timing, the outfit and jewellery for each function, and the photographs from the trial attached or referenced.
What the chart makes possible
An assistant can reproduce the family faces; the artist can reproduce the bride's look weeks later without memory; a substitution after the trial is recorded and re-tested; a dispute about "what we agreed" is settled by the chart; and the artist has a record of every bride for future reference.
Digital charts
A photographed paper chart, a tablet drawing over a face template, or a form with the same fields — the medium matters less than the habit. The photographs of the trial (daylight and flash) travel with it.
The portfolio
What it is for
A bride books the work she can see on a face like hers. The portfolio's job is to show that face — her skin tone, her eye shape, her kind of outfit — done well, in the light she will be photographed in.
What goes in
- Real clients, with written or messaged consent; never another artist's work; never stock.
- Before-and-after pairs, same light, same angle.
- A deliberate range: fair to deep skin; hooded, monolid, deep-set, round eyes; mature skin; textured skin.
- Full bridal looks with outfit and jewellery (the album's own photographs, credited to the photographer, with permission).
- Natural, soft-glam and full-glam examples; a mehendi and a reception; one or two editorial pieces if that is a direction.
- Minimal retouching — smoothing that the real work cannot match is a promise the morning cannot keep.
How to photograph it
Window light or open shade; face filling the frame; eye level; the phone's beauty mode and filters off; a plain background; the same framing for every before and after. Then one frame with the phone's flash from two feet — the wedding-light version brides need to see. Light types in Lighting for Professional Makeup.
How to organise and show it
By face type and by look, so a bride can find herself: "hooded eyes", "deep skin", "soft glam", "traditional red". On Instagram: consistent framing, captions that name the look and the skin type (not the products), the trial-vs-day pairs, and reels of the process where the client agrees. On a simple website: the same categories, a short about page, the enquiry route. Updated monthly; a portfolio that stops reads as an artist who has.
What not to show
Heavily filtered work; a single skin tone; celebrity references passed off as goals; work without consent; anything the artist cannot do again on Tuesday.
From Chhaya Yadav's experience
Observations from bridal and teaching work in Jaipur — professional observations, not statistics.
- Every bride's chart goes in a folder with her trial photographs; on the morning I open it before I open the kit.
- The chart is how my assistant does the sisters' faces in my palette while I do the bride — it is the handover.
- Brides look for their own eye shape and skin tone in a portfolio, not for the most dramatic image; I label mine so they can find it.
- The flash frame beside the daylight frame is what convinced more brides than any single photograph — they see the wedding-light version.
Frequently asked questions
What is a face chart for? Planning and recording. Before a trial it lets the artist place a look on paper — where the depth, the highlight, the liner and the lip shape go — and after the trial it records the exact products and shades so the look can be reproduced on the morning by the artist or an assistant without guessing.
How is a face chart filled in? The paper face is lightly powdered so products grip, then cream and powder products are applied with brushes as on skin — base tone washed lightly, contour and blush placed, the eye built, the lip drawn — and the margins list every product by name and shade with the order of application and any notes on the client's skin.
What does a bridal portfolio need? Real faces, with consent, photographed in daylight and in flash, before-and-after pairs, a range of skin tones and eye shapes, full bridal looks with outfit and jewellery, natural and soft-glam looks, and the artist's own work only — no retouching that the real work cannot match. Updated monthly and organised so a bride can find her own face type in it.
How should portfolio photographs be taken? At a window or outdoors in open shade, the face filling the frame, at eye level, with the phone's beauty filters off; then one with flash for the wedding-light version. Consistent framing across the portfolio reads as professional; wildly different angles and filters read as luck.
Key takeaways
- A face chart plans a look before the trial and records it after — placement, products, shades, order, skin notes — so anyone in the team can reproduce it.
- The portfolio is real faces in real light, before-and-after, across skin tones and eye shapes, with consent and without heavy retouching.
- Photograph consistently — window light plus a flash frame — and organise by face type so brides find themselves.
- Update monthly; show only what can be done again.