Tribal Print

Why is it already Monday again!? Days are going way too fast for my liking and I was so busy in classes and studying this weekend that I hardly had time for anything outside of that for "me" time...and by me time, I mean nail paintin' time ;) Tonight I was exhausted and while I really wanted to do something will my nails, I struggled a great deal with figuring out what to do that wouldn't be too time consuming. Somehow, I landed on Tribal print...yeah, I don't know what I was thinking because tribal print takes me forever and never ends up the way I want. So yes, that is what happened tonight ;) 

I'm not overly happy with how clean my line work is on these. I don't think I've got a knack for tribal print like some people seem to. I get so frustrated and feel like mine are always so minimal in comparision to some other nail artists out there. Maybe one day I'll be fabulous like them! ;)

Anyway, I've only got a few photos of these for you tonight. I did these freehand with my striping brushes and now I'm off to go pass out from exhaustion! 

Happy Polishing :)

Water Lilies!

I set out tonight thinking I was going to do the Candy theme for February's Nail Art Challenge...however, I found this amazing water lily painting in the style of impressionism and I knew I had to try to recreate it. So, sorry if you were looking forward to the Candy theme, but I just couldn't resist!

In total, I used 14 different polishes for this mani! That may be a new record for me! I thoroughly enjoyed painting this, likely because as I managed to roughly execute what I wanted. It could very easily have been a frustrating endeavor. I apologize in advance for the ridiculous number of photos I took of this mani...

Here is the inspiration for this look. I really love this painting by Ann Fuller who recreated Nicholai Fechin's piece. Looks very much like Monet :)

One of the things that I love about impressionism is that on the originals you can see the brush strokes and thick paint creating some amazing texture. I took a few pictures of this before putting my top coat on to try and show the texture that arose from painting this on. Now they are smooth as a baby's bottom (top coats are amazing that way!).

And my right hand (dominant hand)! It definitely leaves you a bit wanting, but I suppose it could have come out worse!

And here is the mess I created! My workspace is in dire need of a clean up...oops!

My palette! I mixed a lot of colors together to get the right shades so these are not true to any actual color. I love using this as my palette because I can easily dip a cotton ball in my dappen dish, soak up whatever acetone I have left in there, and then wipe clean the plastic surface. Super easy!

I'm really proud of how these turned out and excited that I managed to execute something that I thought was a bit daunting. If any of you have a favorite painting that you'd like to see me try to recreate, I would love the challenge of it so let me know! :)

Happy Polishing :)