The first theme was 50 Shades of Grey. Now, I have never read this book so my inspiration came solely from the title. I knew right away I would do a gradient with white, grey and black. The black didn't really come out in the end but that's okay since I was just trying to get the different shades of grey.
I was planning on doing the gradient with a sponge but it just wasn't working out. It was pulling up the polish and making too much texture. I took that all off and decided to try a technique I've seen using a fan brush instead. It was pretty messy but I love how it turned out! I really like how you can see the brush strokes but the transition is still so smooth.
I wish now that I had taken some picture of the process but it's pretty simple. I just put vertical stripes of white, grey and black on some plastic and then swiped the fan brush through it (vertically) a few times to blend the colors together. I picked up quite a bit of paint on the brush so I could cover the nail in one swipe.
The hardest part was finishing the side of the nail where the brush stroke ends. At first I kept getting a bare spot. You can kinda see on the ring and pinky finger where the brush stroke stops and I had to fill it in. I also used a little thinner on my brush to help the colors run together and make it easier to work with.
Love the look, hate the clean up! I made a serious mess. The side where the brush stroke started would be fairly clean but the other side tended to pool up with polish. I had never done this before so hopefully next time I can find a way to cut back on clean up!
I hope you enjoyed this weeks Beauty Minion Assignment. Go check out the other gals work here and stay tuned for a new Beauty Minions post (and hopefully some posts in between) in a couple weeks!
