Hello again, and happy Saturday! Obviously, my nails, with the exception of the thumb and pinky, are still much shorter than I'd like them to be. They've just been breaking and peeling like crazy lately, so I cut the most brittle ones as short as possible to give them a chance to grow back healthily. Anyway, I thought that this recent turn of events would be the perfect opportunity to showcase some designs that work well for shorter nails. You can always adapt designs to fit the length of your nails, but I feel like nail art that employs delicate patterns is especially flattering on short nails. Hence the Rainbow Fish design:
Who remembers the book? It was one of my favorites growing up.
Step 1.) Paint your pinky and thumb nails a light periwinkle shade (these nails will represent Rainbow Fish's fins).
Step 2.) Bust out your trusty black striper and follow along with the chart below to create scales on your ring, middle, and index fingernails.
Frame 1: Make a few short, evenly spaced lines to begin the scale pattern.
Frame 2: Use the tip of your striper to connect the lines. If the striper has a fair amount of polish on the tip, creating the curves should be easier because you don't have to apply as much pressure to deposit polish. Sometimes applying too much pressure causes the striper brush to flick outwards, thus ruining the curve.
Frame 3: Repeat frames 1 and 2 on the rest of your nail. The middle row of scales should be slightly off centered so that they don't line up perfectly with the previous row. Don't worry if this isn't perfect- you'll easily be able to fix your mistakes when it's time to fill the scales with color.
Step 3.) After you've allowed the black polish to dry, gather royal purple/blue, emerald green, multicolored glitter, and bright fuschia polishes. Use a medium sized dotting tool and follow the chart below:
Frame 1: Dab a blob of one color out onto your worksheet. Then, use your dotting tool to gently stipple the color inside a few scales. Be careful to leave enough scales for an even distribution of color.
Frame 2: Repeat step one until you're left with a few empty spaces for Rainbow Fish's glitter scales.
Frame 3: Finish off the nail by adding glitter inside the remaining spaces. Depending on the density of your glitter polish, two coats may be necessary.
Step 4.) While your scale design dries, randomly sponge on some of the royal blue/purple you used earlier and some metallic purple polish to create a watercolor effect (like the illustrations in the book). In order for the colors to blend well, you'll need to immediately apply a topcoat after sponging on the colors. I have a more detailed explanation of this technique here: http://holygrailnails.blogspot.com/2013/01/how-to-easy-stained-glass-nail-art.html
Finally, wait for the topcoat to dry before painting on some random squiggles with the same glitter polish that you used earlier. After everything has dried, apply a topcoat as per usual!
Products Used:
Urban Outfitters "Crowded", Kiss Nail Art Paint in black, Nicole by O.P.I "Iceberg Lotus", L'Oreal "Members Only", O.P.I "Into the Night", Urban Outfitters "Afterhours", Sally Hansen "Deep Purple"
Base and Topcoat: Orly Bonder and Seche Vite
Thanks for reading and good luck!
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