This Nail Art Design was inspired by one of my favorite dresses, many of the flowers on the dress are black & white while a few are bright fuschia. You could really use any bright color as the background for the flower but I chose Janel by Julep because it most closely matched the pink on my dress.
Please do try this at home and tell me how it went!
In addition to your usual base coat, top coat, & favorite clean up products, you will need: three nail colors, dotting tools, and toothpicks.
Step 1: Two coats of the background color; Here, I used Janel by Julep but you could use your favorite bright polish and it would look great. As usual, I let mine dry for at least half an hour before doing the next step.
Step 2: In your dark grey or black (Brandt by Julep shown) add the flower's shadow across three nails centered on the ring finger (or which ever one you want). I just used the brush from the bottle to do this and the shape is intentionally irregular. I also added a partial flower to my thumb nail centered on the outermost corner or it. Tip: Let this stage dry really well...the next stage will use a toothpick to scratch in lines and you don't want to scratch all the way through to the pink....so make sure the grey is dry.
Step 3: Add white (Nicolette by Julep shown) petals to your flower leaving an outline of the grey showing. Again, just the brush from the bottle is fine for this. While the polish is still wet, use a toothpick to scratch a few petal crease lines out to show the grey underneath.Tip: Do this one nail at a time unless you are super fast. So paint on the white for the pinky and then scratch a few lines out to show the underlying grey, then move on to the ring finger, etc.
Step 4: Make a star shaped center in the dark grey (Brandt by Julep shown) just on the nail the flower is centered on. You could either start with a dot of polish in the flower centre and use a tooth pick to spread it into a star or apply it with a little paint brush. Again, this step is supposed to look a bit messy so don't worry too much.
Step 5: Add five white dots off-set in a circle on your center star-shape so the white overlaps with the white of the petals. Then add five smaller grey dots in a tighter circle so they about half cover the white dots. Then five even smaller white dots in a tiny circle so they half cover the black dots. And finally a black dot in the very center of your flower.Tip: You could just stop after the first set of five white dots and it would be just as pretty, I've shown all the stages here so you can decide. If, like me, you hated the first set of dots you made, you can easily take just the center of the flower out with acetone and a small paint brush. This is what I did and why my center star ended up with rounder "points".
Step 6: Add leaves in the dark grey by putting a dab of nail color in a spot and using a toothpick to spread it into a leaf shape. Then while the leaf is still wet, scratch out lines to give it a textured leaf look. Do this one leaf at a time for best results.I hope you enjoyed my inverted flower & leaf design tutorial and try it at home. Please feel free to post in the comments to let me know how it went or ask questions.
Happy Painting!
