Shaun teaches contouring and highlighting a bit like someone breaking down the secret mechanics of a magic trick—dissecting shadow and light with absolute clarity, but never losing the sense of play. He’s not the sort who just runs through the motions; he’ll pause mid-demo, brush in hand, to share the story of a disastrous contour line he once wore to a friend’s wedding. That kind of honesty lands especially well with adults in his class, many of whom arrive with a jumble of prior experience and a fair bit of skepticism. It’s this willingness to laugh at himself, to admit when a trend was, frankly, a mistake, that draws people in. His philosophy? Mistakes are part of the process, not a detour from it. Shaun’s classes at Derunic don’t really feel like “sessions” in the usual sense—sometimes you’ll see a student scribbling notes on the back of their hand because he’s just tossed out an offhand insight about the evolution of strobing. He’s watched contouring morph from sharp, theatrical lines to the softer, more wearable approach you see now; he’ll explain why these shifts happened, not just how to recreate them. Once, he stopped class to show a 90s magazine ad, just to make a point about how trends are cyclical, and the room went quiet in that “oh, I get it” kind of way. Feedback tends to echo the same odd thing: Shaun’s sessions make people question what they thought they knew, yet somehow they walk away more sure of themselves. Maybe it’s because he borrows from colleagues in everything from stage lighting to sculpture—he’s always referencing conversations with folks outside makeup artistry. There’s a kind of cross-pollination happening in his classroom, which means you never quite know what you’ll pick up. And occasionally, if you ask, he’ll admit he’s still learning, too.