🖌Nail Art Styles🎨
A few of my favourite methods 💅
- Fluid Art🌊
- Stamping🤞
- Gradients🌆
Nail Painting, and by extension, Nail Art, are hobbies many people enjoy the world over. Whether you prefer to go to a Salon, or do it yourself, making time for
a bit of Art in your life can be a welcome "Self Care" activity.
I discovered Nail Art completely by accident when I stumbled upon a video online of Hand Painted techniques. It was through watching many (way too many!) of these,
that my passion was ignited! I was of course, first drawn to the super sparkly polishes, the ones that show you Rainbows🌈 when the Sun hits them just right!
After some more time spent watching videos, I rediscovered Stamping Nail art. This is an entirely different beast. Certain polish formulas, plates, and squishy "Stampers"
have to be used to be able to get a result with this style. It takes a lot of Trial and Error, frustration, and shouting at inanimate objects...but one day, it just clicked.
I still struggle now from time to time, as each element can be finicky, as well as the environment you're painting in having an effect on the results you get! Too hot and
the polish will dry in the shallowly etched plates too quickly, too cold and the previous layers will not dry quickly, risking you to smudge your design when you place it down.
Fluid art is a style that I still struggle with, that for some methods, uses specialised polish to create "cells" in the polishes used - you would usually place drops of a few different colours down on a silicone mat or similar surface, add the Fluid Art polish, and smush it together (there are various ways of doing this). Once combined, the Fluid Art polish creates a separation effect, producing these cells, and giving a different result each time! Usually a Fluid art piece would be left to dry to become flexible on a suitable surface that it can be removed from, then transferred to the nail. This process of creating a "sticker" is actually referred to as creating a "Decal" that can be applied to the nail after the initial creation. There are many accomplished artists that use the Fluid method, that have created and posted videos of their methods online if you wish to look for them! 💅💧
Gradients! I personally absolutely LOVE creating Gradients! These can be created using a brush and blending, a sponge, or blending on a surface and using a Stamper to pick up and tranfer to the nail (via the Decal method.) This can also be a tricky one to get the hang of, but by far the easiest one in my opinion. Personally, I like to use a dampened or dry Make-up sponge, just the cheap ones that come in the shape of a Triangle - this means they are ideal, as you don't waste too much material on each use, and you can easily trim off the used potion to reveal a clean surface! Reducing waste hugely. To create the actual Gradient, I like to paint on stripes of my chosen colours onto the sponge, then apply this in gentle dabs to my prepped Nail. Prepping for this would involve applying your base coat of choice, and the lightest colour from your chosen Gradient, or a White if you want your colours to be bright ☀ By repeatedly adding layers of colour, you will get you desired Gradient! 🌈
Finally we have Hand Painting, this is creating any art you wish, just by using a hand painted method. Some Artists create breathtakingly accurate portraits of people, animals, lanscapes and more. Others create beautiful patterns and effects. This is a method that anyone can do, as it only requires patience and practice!
