30 Day Challenge: Inspired By Art

I LOVED this challenge! It was so fun to paint paint again, and I found beautiful inspiration in this painting by Pol Ledent:

About 2 hours and a ton of polishes later, here was the result of my inspiration:

I used some sponging and a paint brush technique to replicate the style, and tried to break up different parts of the painting onto each nail.

I'm quite happy with the result. I think it was a pretty great interpretation, but I'm a bit biased. I did a lot of mixing of my polishes in order to get the right smoky colors, which is part of the reason this took so long. Also, I just really had fun painting like this, so I took my time to try to get everything as close to the original as I could. I really wish you could see these in person, as they look so awesome!

Thankfully I already did tomorrow's challenge earlier today, so I can keep these guys on over the weekend.

Alright, ready to see the ridiculous amount of polishes I used for this one?

Polishes used:

NYC In a Minute Sidewalkers

Essie Blue Rhapsody

China Glaze Bahemian Escape

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away

China Glaze First Mate

NYC French White Tip

China Glaze Kalahari Kiss

China Glaze Lemon Fizz

China Glaze Sun Worshipper

NYC Times Square Tangerine

China Glaze Peachy Keen

Sinful Colors Easy Going

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red

China Glaze Street Chic

Bon Bons Black

My Golden Yellow Nail Art Pen

Seche Vite (top coat)

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Half Moons

Okay, so a small disclaimer: I cheated for today's challenge. I only have two technical half moons as accent nails and I suppose they're a bit too large to actually be considered half moons, but awww look at the pumpkins!

As I mentioned previously, I told my roommate Ashley that I would give her a pumpkin manicure sometime this week. It was my first time ever painting pumpkins, but thankfully Ashley has such large, lovely nails that I had plenty of space to work with and was able to put in some nice detail.

Just to give you an idea of what great nails she has, the pumpkins are about the same size as one of my full fingernails. Crazy!

Fun fact: I won first place at the regional elementary school art contest in 3rd grade for a chalk pumpkin drawing I made. When I was younger I was an avid drawer and my grandfather, who is an incredible artist, was teaching me how to paint. I was actually quite good at both but for some reason stopped practicing freehand arts in high school, so I've lost a lot of my technique. I think that's why I enjoy nail art so much-it's helping me recover my natural love of paint.

Pictured: my incredibly oversized half moon pumpkin

I actually come from a long line of artists. As I mentioned, my grandfather is a painter, as well as two of my great uncles on both sides of my family, and my dad makes and paints model airplanes and he's amazing at it. The amount of detail and precision he has makes my nail art look like a toddler's drawing.

Still, I'm very happy with how these turned out. I had to mix two of my polishes to get the right orange, which actually gives it some natural shading which I really like.

So yes, I kind of cheated for today, but it was worth it. I love these nails, even though it took almost 3 hours to do prep, paint, and clean up (the glue as a cuticle protector did not work so well on Ashley's skin. It was a pain to try to get it off). Now that I've done them, I think I'll be able to cut the time in half whenever I do these next (and I will, because you cannot deny that these are cute and worth repeating).

Polishes used:
Sally Hansen Double Duty (base)
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
China Glaze Lemon Fizz
China Glaze Sun Worshiper
NYC Times Square Tangerine Cream
Double Art yellow striping/dotting pen
Sinful Colors Exotic Green
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lickety-Split Lime
China Glaze Street Chic
Seche Vite (top coat)


Happy Painting!