So unless one of my readers happens to be fluent in ancient logograms, I doubt too many people will know what today's nail art represents ;) For day 4 of Digital Dozen Countries & Cultures week, I decided to paint Mayan logograms!
I've always been fascinated by the Mayans and would love to make it down to the Yucatan Peninsula to explore the ruins of their cities someday. When I settled on researching Mayan art and culture as a possibility for tonight's mani, I found this fantastically informative site all about ancient symbols and they had gobs of information about the Mayan writing system. While the Mayans used mani glyphs in conjunction to form more complex thoughts, they happened to have a few logograms (glyphs that encompass one word, like 'woman') and I thought it would be fun to represent those on my nails today.
If you take a look at the logograms, a majority of them are square in shape, with all their detailing inside said square. I had initially started painting just the squares onto my nails, but then I had the bright idea to use my actual nail shape as the outline of the glyph! I love them! I think it's really great that they aren't overtly Mayan looking and could pass as random patterns, but in reality, they are words.
For those interested, here's what each finger means!
Index - Sky
Middle - Mountain
Ring - Sun
Pinky - Water
Thumb - Spirit
I used a base of OPI's My Vampire is Buff (which, holy crap, I haven't used this in MONTHS!) and did all the detailing with black acrylic paint and a super trimmed down detail brush. If you're looking to get fine lines, don't be afraid to trim down (and possibly ruin) a nicer brush. I like to buy brushes that are short to medium in length that are already quite thin, and then trim them down with scissors, hair by hair. Be patient with it or you'll end up with a stick you can't use instead of a brush ;)
I hope you're all enjoying this week's manis and be sure to check out the inlinkz below to see all the amazingness that the rest of the DD is putting out this week (seriously, they are KILLING IT).
Happy Polishing :)
