Thursday, July 17, 2014

The Digital Dozen does Countries & Cultures - Day 3: California Coast Nail Art


Hi, all! So as per usual, I'm running late with this challenge. I'm so envious of my fellow Digital Dozen members who always have their posts ready to go each week. Anyway, today I have day 3 of the Countries & Cultures theme week! Since I'm American, I wanted to do a mani inspired by this beautiful country...and what better part of this great United States than the area I grew up?! 

I grew up on the central coast of California, about 30 minutes from the beautiful coast. I have very fond memories of going to the beach with my family, spending the day hiking along the cliffs with the dogs while looking down on the surf. *sigh* such great memories! I especially love going when all the California Poppies (our state flower) and Lupin are in bloom! So, in honor of where I grew up, here is my California coast mani. 
I tried my best to make it seem like you were standing in a field of poppies looking out towards the ocean, but the perspective is definitely something I need to work. It's tricky to show foreground and background on tiny nails! In our part of the ocean, there are lots of rock formations out in the surf so I also tried to include those to make the water look more realistic. These are definitely more impressionistic feeling, but hopefully you can still tell what they are ;) 
To create these, I started with a base of Zoya's Kristen and then build up the different layers of color with different acrylic paints. The ocean came first and I tried to show the surf crashing against the rocks. 
The foreground was the tricky part for me. I literally just blobbed on oranges, purples and greens in varying sizes - larger in the front and smaller in the back. Half way through it looked like a hot mess and I was pretty sure I was going to hate it! 
I ended up top coating and mattifying these, but I really loved how vibrant they looked with no top coat. I actually contemplated posting those photos as my final shots, but they felt a bit unfinished...but maybe you all would never have known! ;) Here's a shot of them sans top coat.
But in the end, I'm really happy with how these turned out, if only for the nostalgia of them :) I really like that each nail can sort of stand alone as it's own little piece of the ocean. What do you think of these? Do you have any favorite memories of the area you grew up in? Be sure to check out the inlinkz below to see what everyone else did for day 3! 
Happy Polishing :) 

P.S. Here's one of my favorite shots from the beach with some of my favorite people and animals. <3