BAM: GRADIENTS

Then and Now, and All the Manis in Between: Part III

   My top 3 favourite nail art "trends" or "designs" have to be ikats, florals and Gradients! As I've covered ikats and florals already, in today's instalment, we journey through my past gradients and show you just how versatile and fun they are!

   The first ever gradient I attempted was on my sister. I can't remember whose tutorial it was I followed but I started by painting the nail the light blue colour first, then with a sponge, I sponged on the darker colour after. 

Excuse my sister's awkward hand pose.

   Then I tried it for myself. This time, I followed a different tutorial on how to do gradients: I painted each nail white first, then painted the colours directly onto the sponge before sponging it onto my nail. And to this day, it's still the same method that I use to do my gradients.

Not the best picture, so you can't see how patchy the gradient actually was. But for a first attempt, I was pretty stoked!

   Then I started getting fancy :P I watched a tutorial by Candice (from MrCandiipants) for her 'striped gradient' and I fell in love with it straight away! It's basically painting stripe after stripe on the nail, creating a gradient. I remember these took A LOT LONGER than I first thought it would, probably because I decided to paint in really thin lines! D'oh!

   As if painting tiny lines across my nails weren't enough, I went ahead and tried a colour block gradient. Yes these were neon bright, and yes I still wore them to work :P

   Since then, I've experimented with different colour combinations, using more than 2 colours on a sponge, adding glitter to the gradient, using the actual glitter as the gradient, painting designs over the gradient... Gosh the possibilities are endless!!

 

 

   And for today's nails, I decided to go with an autumn themed gradient (brown - red - orange - yellow) topped with a black frame, accents and studs.

I used Revlon Hot For Chocolate, Butter London Pillar Box Red, Ulta3 Tangelo and Honolulu for the gradient, and Sinful Colors Black on Black for the lines.

   Well that's 3 out of 3! I'll have something a little different for the next blog post, but I'm sure these "then and now" posts will be back soon enough (I'm thinking a look at all my past galaxy nails, or tribal nails)!

xx Christine