Van Gogh's Starry Night Inspiration Nails

When I bought Essie's Aruba Blue at the end of December, I knew that it would be perfect to try out some Starry Night nails!  A few days later, @lilysnailart tweeted about her Starry Night nails.  I replied that great minds think alike and Starry Nights Nails have been on my list since!

As usual for things like this, you should always have a reference to keep looking back to when you want to recreate art. 

I used this googled image:

Next, I prepped my nails with Julep's Nail Therapy as my base coat.  I have to say that looking at my first and later blog posts that my nails do look like they are growing better.  They certainly feel stronger too but I suspect its been from multiple efforts on my part such as not filing the sides of my nails, not biting my nails, not peeling polish from my nails as often, and trying to use a file or clippers when I have a snag.

After my base coat dried, I painted each nail with two coats of Aruba Blue.

Enough can't be said about the Aruba Blue.  It is crisp and clean and bright, the perfect back drop for Van Gogh's Starry Night masterpiece.  As to how I did these nails I start with small white brush strokes  in Snow Me White to start the clouds and outer circles of the stars and moon.  I then used Black on Black to draw in the whispy castle.  I used strokes of Why not on the clouds and blank portions of sky.  I then filled in each star and the moon with a circle of Unicorn.  Next I used Metallic Yellow to fill in the center of each star and the detail of the crescent moon.  I used a mixture of layers of swishes of Black on Black, Aruba Blue, Why Not, and Snow Me White to make the hill detail on the ring finger.  To bring out the outer sky, I added swishes of Snow Me White.  I then used Gone Grey to simulate the whisp of the castle and topped everything with Julep's Fast Drying Top Coat.

If you read yesterday's post, you'll recall that I practiced these nails on a note card first.

Sometime my practice card turns out better than the nails but I have to say that these nails are way better than the practice card!   I think these nails are a pretty darn good effort for a first try:)  Hope you like them and attempt them too!