Black Swirl Nails

This is just a quick post because, dear readers, I am in the throes of finals and have almost completed my first semester of Library School!  A quick side note to anyone contemplating grad school--its hard work but I am a much better student at 32 than I ever was at 20.  Priorities and all that!

 

I did these nails by doing a couple of gorgeous layers KleanColor's Golden Nirvana (picture of the bottle is in this blog post) over base-coated nails.  I then used Wet N' Wild's Black Creme and freehanded all of these different swirls.  I can't decide which is my favorite because they are all visually interesting! 

First Day of Spring means Bluebonnet Nails!

One of my fondest memories of my grandmother that recently died was when I was very young.  My grandmother would take my sister and I on walks in the fields in front of their home in Texas during the spring.  My sister and I would pick handfuls of wildflowers including Indian paintbrushes and bluebonnets.  Yes, yes, I know that bluebonnets are the state flower however, try to reason with a five year old!  We'd bring them back to the house and put all the flowers in mason jars and drinking glasses.  My grandmother was an avid gardener and always had rose bushes and ivy growing.  She loved teaching my sister and I about growing things. Anyway...I have been seeing friends and family post bluebonnet pictures on Facebook and got a little nostalgic so I decided to paint some Bluebonnet nails.  Major plus is that Spring is upon us! 

The first thing I did was to search online for some bluebonnet paintings and found Niki Gulley.  Her Texas wildflower paintings are sooo gorgeous that I modeled my wildflowers after hers!

Next, I had to test out my techniques.  When you do elaborate nails with layered backgrounds you do not want to experiment on your nails.  I practice my designs on dollar store note cards.

You get the idea.  Luckily, most of my nails art tends to turn out better than the test but these look pretty good.  One thing I knew to avoid was the "grape clusters" look when doing this on my nails.  The learning is all in the test!

Then I tried the design out on my nails. The first is with a lamp light and no flash and the second is with flash.

So how did I do these nails? Very carefully!  I started with base coated nails and did one thin coat of Metallic Yellow.  I then sponged on random spots of Snow Me White.  Next I filled in some of the white background with sponging in Unicorn and Venus.  Once the background dried, I sponged on a thin green haze at the tip of each nail in San Francisco.  Using a nail art brush I made bluebonnets with dots of Metallic Sapphire.  I then filled in the middle of each bluebonnet with small dots of Rain Check.  Using a smaller nail art brush, I made the bluebonnet tops with dashes of Snow Me White and added dots to each bonnet.  For the Indian Paintbrush, I made ovals in Thimbleberry and accented the petals with more dashes of Snow Me White.  I used more San Francisco to add stems and leaves to the paintbrushes and highlighted the leaves with the lighter green Olympia.  To protect my art, I painted over each nail with a top coat.  I have to say that these are some of my favorite nails to date.  For my Texas peeps, keep on posting the glorious spring wildflowers.  With all the rain Texas just got, there should be tons of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes to take in!

What do you think?

Polish Haul and Nails Two Ways: Splatter Mint Nails and Mint Cirlces and Dots Nails

I really, really, really need to stop buying polish but these were such good deals that I couldn't pass them up.  Not to mention, oh my, pastels!  Also, I've been generating all sorts of ideas using studs so the Kiss Nail Art Metallic stickers were an especially cool find!

I couldn't wait to try I Need A Refresh-Mint so I painted my base coated nails with two coats of this mint-y polish.

Next, I decided to try Splatter Nails one more time with a smaller straw and had better results this time!  I call these Splatter Mint Nails.

On the other hand, I wanted to try something different so using the same small straw I created circles, half circles, and arches in four different pastel polishes.  Next I took my smallest dotting tool and applied random dots in the same color to each nail.

The Splatter Mint Nails look so cool and my Mint Circles and Dots Nails are extra cool!

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!

Nails Imitating Art

I've been following the artist, Natasha Westcoat on Facebook ever since I happened on to her website.  I fell IN LOVE with her tree paintings.  Its my fondest wish to have an original painting.  I think I will one day soon!   If you love her paintings, please add her as a facebook friend AND buy her paintings.  They are now sold as prints in all kinds of stores!  I was inspired by one particular painting from Natasha called "Gold Coast" and you can see it below.

 

The nails I came up with based off the above painting were these....

I used a Sinful Colors Snow me white base, Revlon Gold Coin  for the hills, mixture of Stripes Black, Essie Licorice, and Wet n Wild black for outline, trees and black dots, and multiple other colors for rest of dots.  The bulk of the art was accomplished by a nail art brush but the dots were formed from two or three different sized dotting tools.

My nail art can be influenced from paintings, fabric, graphics, books, movies, wall paper, photos, and even music videos.  Pull your nail art influences from things you love too, and you'll always love them!