Gabrielle Alexis has made jaws drop all over Instagram with her incredible artistry. The 22-year-old professional makeup artist from Michigan has gained a huge social media following for her amazing eye makeup looks. The kicker? She doesn’t even create them in her eyes.
The install-famous artist has the fascinating ability to create hyper-realistic makeup looks straight onto her forearm. She outlines, draws and fills in eyebrows and eyes from scratch. The sets of eyes she draws look just like hers; like a little makeup twin, if you will. She started the tricky art of drawing eyes when she was just 13 years old, and judging by her work today, she’s totally mastered it.
She keeps up with current makeup trends and shares her eye-popping artwork with her 236,000 followers on Instagram. Check out some of her posts: You won’t believe your eyes!
Gabrielle often shares time lapses in her creative process. If anyone is brave enough to give this difficult artwork a shot, you can follow her step-by-step from beginning to end. The hours of work she puts in are summed up in videos that are less than 15 seconds.
As seen in her videos, she typically starts out by outlining the eyebrows and the eyes. She then goes on to fill the brows in with pomade, using a tiny paintbrush and feathering strokes for a more realistic look.
The rules of makeup artistry aren’t sacrificed with Gabrielle’s arm art. She even outlines the brows with concealer, as any good makeup artist would do for a client. As you can see here, she sometimes likes to match her latest makeup look with her nails!
Aside from the fine detailing involved in creating the eyes and eyebrows from scratch, Gabrielle says the rest of the makeup process is basically the same. ‘Once I pass tracing out the eye and eyebrow shape, the steps to get a smokey eye or cut crease [are] exactly the same,’ she told INSIDER in an interview.
Gabrielle says this type of artwork has helped her to grow as an artist. ‘It has improved my technique tremendously and my blending! It’s easier to see what works and what doesn’t when I’m looking down at my work instead of looking in a mirror,’ she said. ‘So when it comes down to doing my own eye makeup it’s a breeze!’
Gabrielle says she first saw a picture of someone who created an eye look on their hand on Pinterest. This is what inspired her to start creating them on her own arm. One of the very first pieces of arm art she posted online was this half-made-up face pictured below.
Depending on how extravagant the 22-year-old goes with her looks, the work can take anywhere from two to four hours. How in the world does she bring herself to wash off all of that hard work afterward?
Everything from the feather strokes on the eyebrows to the fluffy lashes that look incredibly lifelike, each tiny detail creates the illusion that you’re actually staring into someone’s eyes. She enhanced her makeup art here by adding metallic tattoos for a gypsy-inspired look.
Not only is she a master at lids and brows, but check out how well the makeup artist can create pupils and irises. The highlighting and shading give the illusion that this gorgeous set of eyes is in front of a flashing camera.
The dimension she creates to give the illusion of an actual set of eyes is impeccable. Not to mention the bridge of the nose is so three-dimensional, that you’d think it was real. If you look closely at this post, you’ll also notice Gabrielle made the eyes appear as if you’re looking at them from an angle as opposed to straight on.
Like any good makeup artist, she keeps up with all of the latest trends. One that recently popped up all over Instagram was ‘crown makeup,’ and Gabrielle was on it. Here, she created three majestic looks and even changed up the brow style for each of them.
Drawn-on freckles were another hot trend in the makeup world recently. If you thought eyes and brows were her only specialty, think again: She’s even mastered drawing these adorable flecks of the sun! In this post, she created realistic-looking freckles using an eyebrow pomade.
Who doesn’t love a little sparkle? Gabrielle is known for taking all of her makeup looks a step further with a little help from some glitter and rhinestones.
Recently, Gabrielle’s arm art was inspired by a few of this year’s Met Gala looks. The makeup in the post below was influenced by Rihanna’s dress. It looks like she could give some Hollywood makeup artists a run for their money!
As I’m sure you know, Halloween is a huge deal for most Insta-famous makeup artists. Here is one of Gabrielle’s earlier works, a spooky and bedazzled skull going vertically down her forearm.
Gabrielle’s fans will often attempt to recreate her arm art on their faces and she likes to share her favorite ones with her 263,000 Instagram followers. So if you think you’re up to it, have a go at one of these amazing looks! But beware; getting anywhere close to her level of perfection will be a challenge.
