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Monday, July 2, 2012

Out of My Comfort Zone

Nail art, especially freehand nail art, is something I keep saying I want to spend more time on, but when I have a chunk of hours to play with my polishes, I almost always do other things that I'm more comfortable doing, like swatching and layering and comparing. But when I did the comps I showed Friday, I managed to ignore the voice in my head that said when I was done with those, I should move on to swatching another collection because that would for sure go well and be a good blog post. Instead, I left the blue comparison swatches on my hand and grabbed some of my rarely used nail art stripers and a purple creme to make a garden on my fingers. Somehow starting with the mismatched base colors made it easier to play, like if I messed up and ended up with nothing I wanted to show the world, at least I wouldn't have wasted the time putting on a base color. I know, it seems like goofy reasoning, but if that's what it takes, okay.

So I had China Glaze Sea Spray, Cult Nails Princess, and Butter London Lady Muck as my sky. I pulled out the only three green stripers I own to use for leaves: LA Colors Art Deco Bright Green, Kiss Nail Art Paint Beach Green, and LA Colors Art Deco Green Glitter. For my flowers, I chose Finger Paints Pop Art Purple.



My inspiration was the design Maria did in her Small Yellow Spring Flowers post. Here's how my version turned out (with topcoat, because I had the idea that would sort of meld the elements together):





I didn't have my computer up at the time I was doing this (and reading blog posts on my phone is too hard on my eyes), so I worked from memory. I would like to say that's the reason my interpretation doesn't have as much detail as Maria's original (no clouds, no shimmery highlights on my flowers, fewer flowers altogether in part because my dots are not so small), but I think it's more that I'll need a lot more practice to be able to work so much into one design as she routinely does. Still, my garden was fun to look at, and the flowers even coordinated with the dress I was wearing that day.



I can't promise new nail art every week, but I do hope to bypass that voice, the "better to swatch than possibly waste time making bad art" one, more often, because it's fun to see what happens.

42 comments:

  1. This is really cute and very well done! :)

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  2. I think you did very well! You did much better than what I would have come up with, that's for sure! So yes please, do it more! :)

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  3. It looks good as you didn't over complicate it :) you can tell that they are flowers and I like the different greens that you used!

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  4. Aww, I'm happy I inspired you, and I think you did so well, just keep 'em coming :)

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  5. This is so cute Karen!! Awesome job!

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  6. I think this looks great! The green glitter definitely makes it. You shouldn't feel self-conscious at all :)

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  7. Very cute! I like it! I cant do nail art.

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  8. Really good nail art, if I were you I'd do it more often ;)

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  9. That is such a pretty design! I love the colours. You have to do this more often :D

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  10. This is super cute! I really can't do this sort of thing at all, but this is really inspiring.

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  11. Karen this mani is SO CUTE!!!! I love it!

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  12. that came out fantastic! perfect colors

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  13. You did great! This looks fantastic! I'm looking forward to seeing more. :)

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  14. So cute!! I've been experimenting with nail art lately, I'm not very good but definetly getting better!! :)

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  15. Looks very nice!

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  16. Beautiful! I love this design! Great job! you should totally do more nail art; this is really fun!

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  17. Karen these are so cute!! They look adorable and pretty simple - something great for people who aren't as skilled in freehand! Great work!

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  18. Very pretty. I like it a lot :)
    What colour of Barry M are you looking for ?

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  19. shut up, this is great, you should do it more often <3

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  20. I agree, great work. I'm poo at nail art, I usually stick to swatching.

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  21. Wow you did great! I love your flowers and the colors you chose go lovely together! :-)

    ~ Yun

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  22. sooo freaking gorgeous! i wish you did more nail art because this is very pretty! :D

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  23. That is so pretty. You did good, girl. :D

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  24. These are cute! They're very wild flower-like and look great! :)

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  25. This looks so pretty, I love it.

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  26. Aww I love this! It's so cute! I think you should do nail art more often :D

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  27. I think your garden looks great! :)

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  28. I see. Well if you want I can send you 3 colours of your choice. Just let me know if you can't get them :)

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  29. This is really sweet :) I really like the glitter you added. I look forward to more nail art :D

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  30. This is really great! You should do this more often!

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  31. Love it! You should keep with nail art!

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  32. Fantastic! Can't wait to see your next free hand mani!

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  33. Nice job! Keep on keepin' on.

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  34. Thanks so much, ladies! Now I'm really encouraged to try more freehand art. :)

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  35. This came out really nicely! I like how you added a little glitter there for texture and dimension! You definitely should do more nail art.

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Thank you for reading and commenting! I greatly appreciate knowing I'm not just talking to myself here. :) I'm moderating most comments now due to the spate of spammers who claim to be looking for sexy times.