Monday, April 7, 2014

Nail-Art-A-Go-Go Challenge - Day 1: Achromatic


Hello, all! Happy Monday (at least as happy as it can be)! Today I finally have a purely nail art post to share with you all! If you'll recall, at the beginning of February I had planned on completing the Nail-Art-A-Go-Go challenge put on my Missy over at Gnary Gnails...and if you'll also recall, I failed miserably at keeping up with it. I loved the themes in the challenge so much though that I had hoped to eventually revisit it at some point. 

While the NAGG challenge was initially meant to be completed during the month of February, it's a versatile theme that can work for any time of year. About two weeks ago I was chatting with my friend Mireia from The Nail Art Show and she mentioned that she was interested in trying out the challenge herself. I jumped at that and we decided we'd embark on the challenge together! So, for next few months, the two of us will be working our way through the challenge, posting Mondays and Thursdays. Pretty exciting, right? :) 

While I already completed Day 1 of the challenge back in February, it only felt right that I should start fresh and redo the Achromatic theme. Achromatic is "without color" and for some reason, tonight, my mind jumped directly to mandalas and henna! So, here is my Day 1 mani :)

I've done a few mandala inspired manis in the past (most notably my Black and White themed ones for the Digital Dozen), but this time I wanted to do something really intricate. When looking for my inspiration, I looked to Instagram for the first time ever. Searching for #mandala let me to the outrageously talented artist, Dan Rostin (@iliyakis). Instant inspiration! 
I used a base of OPIs My Boyfriend Scales Walls and then used my detail brush and black acrylic paint to carefully create the mandalas. I once again used my trimmed down detail brush and did my best to create very deliberate strokes. This is definitely a look that required a lot of time and patience. 
While my line work isn't as clean as I'd hoped it would be, I can't say I'm disappointed with how this came out. I'm more proud of certain nails than others, but as a whole, I really love this look. I think this is a blend of mandalas and henna style and I'm just obsessed with those patterns! 
I'm very excited to be doing this challenge with Mirela who is incredibly talented and creative. It should be a fun experience for both of us and I can't wait to see what she comes up with! Be sure to check out here blog post once it's up using the inlinkz below. 

So, what do you think? Do you like this mani or is there too much going on for you? 

Happy Polishing :)