Materials I used:
Base coat - INM Ridge Free
Light blue - Color Club 'In De-Nile'
Dark blue - Color Club 'Nail Robi'
Ellagee 'Lickity Split Latex Mani Mask'
Make up sponge (not shown in picture below)
Striping brush
Top coat - Rica 'Glossy Glam'
I prepped my fingers with my ridge filler base coat, I always use a base coat to minimize nail staining. I really like this base coat because unlike other ridge fillers it isn't thick, yet it still gives my nails the smooth surface that usually takes a significant amount of buffing for me to obtain without a ridge filler. I also applied a liquid latex mask, to help with the clean up process.
For this post I decided to bring back using my left hand so that you can see the progress it is making since I broke most of my nails on this hand a couple weeks ago. As you can see they are still a bit nubbly, uneven, and I have a couple of weird corners. However, they're making a strong come back so far, so I thought I would encourage them by letting them show off this post.
I began this design with a gradient, currently my favorite nail art technique. I decided to use what I am referring to as the quick gradient method. Instead of using a white or light colored base I started off with painting my nail half of each shade. I reversed the color order on each nail to make it a little more interesting.
Then using a make up sponge (like you do), I blended the colors in the manner you do with a traditional gradient design. The hardest part about this was remembering to flip the sponge so that I didn't ruin my color pattern.
At this point I removed the mani mask and performed a little bit of clean up before proceeding to the freehand portion of the design.
Since, this is for the Freehand IG Challenge I had to do something freehand for this nail art so I decided to go with my favorite pattern, vertical stripes. Using a striping brush, I used my two blue polishes and striped three stripes on each nail, alternated between the light and dark across all my nails.
I performed a final bit of clean up with acetone and a brush, and applied my shiny top coat.
The final result is a neat monochromatic blue fading stripe design. The stripes appear to fade in and out of the gradient, which I think is a pretty cool affect. I would have preferred to use striping tape to create cleaner lines, but it was good to practice my freehand stripes.
I'm so excited that I completed another challenge! As I said before, I really enjoy the Freehand IG Challenge, its a great motivator to practice my freehand skills. I really hope they do it again in June, and I hope you all decide to join in. If they post a June challenge I will be sure to share it with you here, that way if you're not on Instagram you can still join in. If you are on Instagram, please check out my account and follow me if you aren't already, I post nail mail, works in progress, and some personal pictures there.
I post on many different social medias and share with a few different nail art communities. If you would like to follow me or see where I hang out online check out my 'About Me/Contact Information' page to see my channels and links so that you can find me easier. I appreciate each and everyone of my followers on all my networks, your likes, kind comments, and even page views put a smile on my face. Thank you so much for stopping by, see you next time.
Your Fellow Plebe,
