Tuesday, September 30, 2014

31DC2014 Day 30- Inspired by a tutorial

Today I did stamp decals, inspired by a tutorial from NailzCraze. I know that a bunch of people have made tutorials for this, but Natalie's post was the first I'd ever heard of it, so this is dedicated to her :)





Monday, September 29, 2014

31DC2014 Day 29- Inspired by the supernatural

Today's manicure is a Fairy Ring, complete with a couple of abstract fairies (accidentally abstract, you could say :P) I love fairy rings, because while they look adorable and lighthearted, the mythos surrounding them is actually pretty creepy- children being abducted by the Fair Folk, getting trapped in other realms, changelings... innocent looking sinister things are really intriguing to me.





Sunday, September 28, 2014

Saturday, September 27, 2014

31DC2014 Day 27- Inspired by art

I decided to take a slightly more abstract approach to today's challenge. It's odd, because today's theme is possibly the most evocative of all of them, but try as I might I couldn't think of a piece of art that I wanted to work on. Either it was something beyond my ability to do justice to, or it was something that I knew a lot of other people would tap for inspiration.

So instead I decided to draw inspiration from a piece of music- not a song, mind you, a jazz composition. One of my favorites- Take Five by Dave Brubeck. I challenge you to give it a listen and tell me that's not a work of art.

I had already printed the sheet music out on water decal paper a long time ago, so it was simply a matter of finding a flattering and fun way to display it. I tried to give it a fun, lighthearted look. Here is what I came up with!






Friday, September 26, 2014

31DC2014 Day 26- Inspired by a pattern

I took today's inspiration from a very personal place. For my 20th birthday, my dad got me two strings of beautiful pearls- one freshwater and one saltwater- during a business trip he took to Beijing. I've worn both strands of pearls many times since. Today's art is inspired by the little satchel he brought me the pearls in- a beautiful burgundy color embroidered with elaborate gold and cushioned on the inside to keep the pearls safe. In the nearly  decade since the satchel has gotten a little frayed, but it still is very dear to me. Since I queued the posts for the high holidays in advance, I will no longer have this art on by the time this post propagates, but there's a high likelihood that I'm wearing one of the strings of pearls :)

(I couldn't find an exact match to the burgundy, so this is my closest  shade!)



I'd also like to note that this post officially means that I've gotten further in 31DC than last year, woo!


Thursday, September 25, 2014

31DC2014 Catchup 19-20-21-22


Day 19- Galaxies



It's kind of a pity I ended up posting these on a catchup day, because I think these might be the best galaxy nails I've ever done. Ah well, next time I'll try harder to post on time!

Day 20- Water Marble



You know, the very first nail art I ever did was a water marble. I must have had beginner's luck, because at the time I thought it was really easy! Now I can still manage it, but there are a lot more tears involved.

Day 21- Inspired by a color




I'm fairly predictable when it comes to colors- usually it's either some iteration of teal or purple. But to be a little more specific, this design is inspired by matte purple! (uh... ignore that my previous purple post was also matte shhhhh)

Day 22- Inspired by a song



This was inspired by the song Fireflies by Owl City. I dunno what it is about that song- I am so so so in love with it. It makes the world feel like magic.

32DC2014 Day 25- Inspired by fashion

Today's inspiration comes from inside my own closet! I have a cute knitted tunic which I've held on to for almost a decade, and surprisingly it still fits me. It's not just a personal piece of fashion though- there's a style of tunics and shirts that's been around for a looong time where I'm from, and it doesn't look like it's going away soon, either. It's an asymmetrical collar with three oversized buttons down the side of the collar. I'm actually pretty glad it's not going anywhere- that look is flattering on almost everyone.

The only picture I have of myself in this tunic is nine years old, so forgive the slightly blurry look:


And here are my nails (only a few days old as of posting this :D I didn't even get into nail art until about six years after this was taken!):



Wednesday, September 24, 2014

31DC2014 catchup- Day 16-17-18

Catchup part one! I'm not going to get  overly wordy today, on to nails!

Day 16- Geometric


Day 17- Glitter



(quick explanation: Hanukkah is a long way off, but I made this glitter for my Hanukkah collection of my indie brand that hasn't launched yet, it's called Topsy Turvy and it's Dreidel themed. I was gonna make a bigger deal of it but I'll discuss this more later!)

Day 18- Half Moons



Next four tomorrow!


31DC2014 Day 24- Inspired by a book

I'm on time!

Today's post is inspired by the book I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett. It's the amazing, fantastic, wonderful, moving culmination to his Tiffany Aching YA series. I cannot recommend that series enough. (Although beware: this book is the final in the series, read the others first!)

Credit where credit's due: I wanted to draw a hare made of flames on one of my nails, since hares and flames are both strong motifs in the book, but I am no good at drawing, so I used the fan art cover designed by Alicia-MB on tumblr as a reference. My hare doesn't hold a candle to hers (no pun intended) but at least it looks hare-like!





I will be gone for the next few day for the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashana, but I've got posts queued so I don't miss any more days of this challenge! I will also be posting one catch-up today, and have one queued for tomorrow (since I missed six days I'll be splitting the art three-and-three)


Tuesday, September 23, 2014

31DC2014 Day 23- Inspired by a movie

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh man! I haven't updated in over a week! I've actually been keeping up with the art side of the challenge, but the photos have been piling up on my computer not getting posted =/ I've done some really cool stuff over the last week, so I'll be dedicating two catch-up posts to the whole thing. In the meantime, here's today!

I chose the movie Pacific Rim as my inspiration- specifically, the Kaiju, who have mottled grey skin with bright blue bioluminescent highlights running through them. I actually used a glow in the dark blue in this look, but unfortunately the bottle is pretty old and I couldn't get a glow out of them, even after "charging" them in the sun for five minutes and going into a pitch black room :(

Still, I do think I managed to capture an abstract kaiju-ish look, and I got a compliment from a waitress today!




Sunday, September 14, 2014

31DC2014 Day 15- Delicate print

Every now and again I have to go back to the classic nude-and-white French manicure. Here I added a bit of a twist with a floral stamp from MoYou's Professional plate #7, and some rhinestone accents. I'm also trying out a new pose for my fingers. It's less about showing the details of the art and more about displaying the whole thing nicely. I think I like it!





31DC2014 Day 14- Floral

For me, floral has to be bright and colorful. I actually debated doing this design in rhinestones rather than flat glitters, but I decided to save that for another time. I do have these lovely teardrop shaped rhinestones in pink and red, but doing an entire hand in that? Nah. I'll probably try it out as an accent one of these days though.

For this manicure I started with an off-white background, and sponged some pale blue and green over it randomly to create an abstract daylight look. I placed diamond glitter in flower shapes on top of that.



Saturday, September 13, 2014

31DC2014 Day 13- Animal Print

I ran into this problem. I had the same problem last year, wherein I Don't Like animal print. I just have this huge aversion to tiger and zebra stripes or leopard spots, which is where these things normally go. I always have to try and find some unusual take on it, not even for the sake of creativity, but for the sake of not hating my nails.

So this year I went with turtle shells. I did turtle shells not long ago, but these are far more detailed. I tried to create a mottled effect by sponging on various greens and golds and beiges, but it actually looks pretty uniform in the pictures. Still, as far as animal print goes, this pings me as fairly tolerable :)



Friday, September 12, 2014

31DC2014 Day 12- Stripes

I am trying to get more creative with my color schemes, and I came up with this. One of my coworkers commented that it looked "very 1980's". Whaddaya think, should I call this retro? Or accidentally retro?



Thursday, September 11, 2014

31DC2014 Day 11- Dots

It's dotticure time!

So, funny story- I originally planned to do a sort of "rainbow fish" look, layering dots over dots. But no matter what I tried, it ended up looking atrocious. I guess next time I'll learn my lesson and use a stamp, not dots. The original color scheme I picked out had some green, but in the end I decided that if I was abstracting the look I'm gonna narrow the color scheme too. I still think it has a bit of the rainbow fish feel to it, don't you?


This ended up going online half a day later than when I usually do it. Oh well, better late than never!

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

31DC2014 Day 10- Gradient

Gradient day! Since gradients are a staple for me in my nail art repertoire, I wanted to try and find a new twist. I decided to go diagonal, and also instead of sponging with a single makeup sponge I worked with a little eye shadow sponge to achieve this look. What do you think?




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