31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 14: Flowers

So I've failed yet again at posting on time for this challenge :/ If anyone is waiting with bated breath every Tuesday and Friday...well, I'm sorry I'm always late! haha I actually had this manicure painted and photographed late last night but I had some misgivings about posting them. I decided to sleep on it and after looking back over my photos, I decided to use these as my flower nails!

What were my hesitations, you ask? Well, I was putting a ridiculous amount of pressure on myself for today's mani. I feel like on the whole I am relatively good at doing floral manicures but that has become a bit of a double edged sword! I feel like I've got to outdo myself every time I do florals and I've managed to let it stress me out - sad right!? ;) Please tell me I'm not the only one who is crazy and does this to themselves!? 

I was also a bit hesitant about using this design for my flower look because I don't think they are immediately recognizable as flowers. They are very abstract and more of a sketched and messy look (Meghan and I were totally on the same brain wave with our flowers!) and I thought that maybe I should stick with a more realistic look. In the end, though, I'm really happy with this mani. 

I just got all the cremes from the OPI San Francisco collection and was itching to use them! I started out with a base of Skull and Glossbones and added a top coat (I like doing this because it lets me easily remove errors with acetone). With First Date at the Golden Gate, I painted the red flower petals, followed by In the Cable Car-Pool Lane with the smaller purple petals. The leaves are several messy lines of A-Piers to be Tan and then with a tiny tiny detail brush and black acrylic paint, I did all my outlining. I didn't worry too much about how clean my line-work was or if I painted outside the lines because I wanted the messy, sketched look. 

What do you think of these? Do you prefer realistic flowers or more artsy looking flowers? 

Happy Polishing! :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Flaming Skull (NO, these will never get old!)

Streaking across our Saturday is TW Brown with this recent skull sketch of two of my favorite things, skulls and flames!

The first thing that pops to mind is one particular cut of SLAYER's many, many kick ass tracks that mentions certain death "Screaming From The Sky ". I think you'll agree that this is quite the appropriate image. Thanks for sharing it, TW!

App Sketched Skulls

Long time friend of the Skull-A-Day project Ronn Campbell in Kennewick, WA told us: "I downloaded an app called sketch up.  Of course the first thing I drew were a few skulls."

Appster C says:

Thank you for continuing to be a supporter of the project and submitting some of your new creative endeavors with us to share.  As we are settling into year 7.0 it is wonderful to be able to catch up with some old friends who may in turn inspire some new friends to share their work.

Three Skulls

Nick Newton in Calgary, Canada sent us this skull trilogy.  He said: "I am loving your site. There are many amazing artists out there. I'm submitting three skulls - two small clay skulls that I made - one,
more abstract, out of red clay, and another out of white. I'm also including a notebook sketch of a skull I made."

Stampede C says:

Thank you for sharing your work with us, and also thank you for your kind words about the site.  Congratulations, you also now have bragging rights as one of our amazing artists that we featured here.

Business Card Skull

Web Designer Craig Edmond from Norwich, CT, USA wrote: "I think your site is great and thought I would send along one of my skull illustrations. This is kind of a digital composite of different sketches I did on the backs of business cards."

Suit Up C says:

This is an awesome composite you put together. There is something wonderfully old about this and when I first saw it I thought New England for some odd reason.  It was interesting to later see where you are from.  This would make an incredible Ex Libris plate, kind of works as we start to see the end of books as we know them. Thank you for submitting your work for us to share.

“Countdown To Halloween”
7 more days and counting...

Odoskull

Nick Newton from Calgary, Alberta Canada, created an odosketch of a skull.

odosketch is a site I hadn't come across before, but it's fascinating. It's a bit like drawing with light markers, and takes some time to master, as the color goes from small to large the faster you sweep it. The amazing thing about it, is that once your sketch is complete, you can watch the playback of how it was created. This is a great tool for digital doodling, and something that I'm going to let my daughter sketch on. To see Nick's skull being created, view it here.

Odoskull

Nick Newton is from Calgary, Canada and he digs skulls AND our site. He's presented us with this smiley skull sketch that he created using odosketch.

I dig the way you kept us in mind once you completed this cranial creation.  Plus, the odosketch site is a pretty nifty place for spreading creativity.  Thanks for sharing both of them with us, Nick!