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| Only a fraction of my nail polish collection, of course. |
I have to admit that I love nail art, and I really admire the people who do such fantastic designs, like at
The Daily Nail Blog. The problem with nail art, however, is that if you suck at art in general -- in other words, are unable to draw a circle without it being misshapen or even a straight line -- then you most likely suck at nail art. And by you, I mean me.
OK, so I don't suck at all nail art. I can do well with very simplistic designs. Sally Hansen's nail art pens and fine-tipped Sharpies make things easier, like polka dots or a deformed squiggle. Not to brag or anything, but I'm super skilled at deformed squiggles that are so terrible that they don't look remotely like alike on any of my nails.
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| Picture from The Daily Nail Blog |
Now, I definitely don't want to sound like a hipster, but I was doing nail art before it was big. My first masterpiece was for the opening of
Spider-man 3. On my left hand, I did stripes of alternating cherry red and midnight blue Wet N Wild polish because, you know, red and blue are Spider-man's colors. Duh. Then on my right hand I alternated dark purples because, being an optimistic idiot, I actually thought Venom was going to be an important part of the film. Silly me. Years later I did a similar concept for the opening day of
The Amazing Spider-man. I got the minis set from OPI's tie-in collection for the movie and alternated the nails of my left hand in Into The Night (a gorgeous deep blue) and Your Web Or Mine (a pinky red) and my right hand with the silvery-greens of Just Spotted The Lizard and Number One Nemesis, although these were solid nails, not stripes. However, I didn't have my Spider-man hair ribbons to wear to the premier, so I wasn't quite as geekily awesome that time.
My best nail art ever was for the premier of the
Watchmen movie. I actually had to go to four different stores to find yellow nail polish, and eventually I got a tiny bottle from Claires. I recreated the book cover on each of my nails (minus the title and text). I did three coats of yellow (since it was such a thin color) and then a swipe of black from Hot Topic down the middle, trying to make it as oval as possible. Next I put a slash of blood-red diagonally through the black to be the splatter of blood across the smiley face eye, and finally I sealed it all with a top coat. Very simplistic, but fantastic. I keep thinking I should recreate it sometime.
The following summer, I attempted to make Rorschach ink blots on my nails when the director's cut of
Watchmen was released on DVD, but that attempt at nail art was a fail. Symmetrical, abstract blobs of black are a lot harder to pain than they sound. For the record, the Batman symbol is also very difficult to paint. Kudos to anyone who can accomplish that.
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| Picture from The Daily Nail Blog |
Not all nail art has to be nerdy, of course. That's just the direction I happen to lean in. Sometimes nail art can be as easy as using a crackle or shatter, magnetic, or texture polish. And for the lazy girls like me, there's always nail wraps, those stickers or strips of nail polish, many with fabulous designs. For those, it doesn't matter if you suck at art; you can still have fantastic nails no matter where your talents lie.
Btw, if anyone can pull of Rorschach nails, tweet me the pictures (
@ak_gossipghoul) so that I can glower at them in envy and awe.
XOXO
Gossip Ghoul.
