Nail Art on the Wild Side

This is not related to Easter or spring, but I wanted to show you some of my handpainted stuff. It’s just me, nail polish, and the tiniest paintbrush I can find. I use double-sided foam tape to stick the nails onto a Plexiglass board and then I use the board as a pallette to mix up the colors I need. I use only nail polish, no paint.  This medium and setup works for me, but unless you can assemble a color wheel in your head backwards and forwards, you may find that acrylic paint works better. Nail polish dries really, really fast on a pallette- you have seconds to work it before it gets a skin on it and gets all clumpy. So unless you can mix the color you like on the first try every time, I would recommend starting with acrylic paint.

I made this set as a custom order a while back. The Mystery Animal you see on the extreme left is actually a meerkat. Don’t laugh! Well, OK, you can laugh. They’re funny looking little buggers- mine looks like a stuffed animal. Luckily, the client was really nice and had enough of a sense of humor to appreciate him.

I knew all those years of doodling would pay off someday! If you’re artistically inclined, give miniature painting a try. You’ll either be hooked and love it, as I did, or you’ll have a violent swearing fit and hurl your paints across the room. It only seems to go one of those two ways.

I’m thinking I’m going to have to change the name of the blog to “NeverTooMuchQuirkyNailArt” as that seems to be most of what I’ve been doing lately, but painting these little detailed things is keeping my mind off all the stuff that’s happening here in Japan. Extra dose of art therapy!