Sunday 27 April 2014

Pastel rainbow interlocked reciprocal gradient

This mani was created for Peace, Love & Polish and Nails Like Lace's pastel rainbow nail art collaboration. Nail art 'collabs' are when nail artists get together, decide on a common theme (sometimes pre-determine by the host), and everyone does a design to suit the theme then submits it to the collab host, who then compiles all the mani's into a master collage. This is the second collab I've participated in, and it's so fun to see what everyone comes up with. Here's the final product:


And here's my solo shot:



I know you're looking at it and thinking huh? What? Is that a reciprocal gradient or... my eyes hurt. 
It is kind of trippy and confusing to look at, and let's just say what I had pictured in my mind had not exactly translated onto the nail... BUT something totally different and intricate-looking came through. So let's see if I can explain this well enough. Not going to lie, it's a really time-consuming mani because of all the tape placement.


Basically, the mani story goes like this:
1) Apply two coats of white polish. The more opaque the better, but not more than 2 coats or else the end result polish will get too thick.
2) Gradient from blue-green-yellow-orange-pink-purple going one way using a make-up sponge, let dry (I'm assuming you know how to do this part).
3) Cut striping tape so that that one edge is straight (this will go across the middle of the nail). Instead of applying straight vertical lines of striping tape all the way lengthwise across the nail, vertical lines are applied on the top half the nail with the end of the tape stopping in the very middle of the nail. All the tips of the tape should form a straight edged horizontal line across the middle of the nail.
4) Add more striping tape to the bottom half of the nail, but in the opposite slots as the striping tape on the top of the nail. The striping tape ends up looking interlocked. Again, the ends of the tape should form a straight line at the same position as the ends of the tape on the other half of the nail.
5) Apply a gradient of the same colours but going in the opposite direction as your first gradient, remove tape.
6) Clean up, topcoat, have a drink, etc.

If this made any sense to you, then go bake yourselves some cookies.




Try holding this many nail polishes in one hand... it's harder than it looks.



So theoretically this mani should end being the same half of the gradient (colourwise) in each vertical stripe, all the way from top to bottom since you cover up the opposite half with the other half of gradient colours. (Now eat all the cookies if this makes sense). But because gradients are never perfectly equal, you can tell where the middle lines are, which to me actually reveals a more interesting effect. I plan on experimenting with this idea of interlocked reciprocal gradients in the future, so stay tuned!

Polishes used:
- Orly 'Pointe blanche' (white base)
- Nails Inc. 'Chelsea physic garden' (baby blue)
- Charlotte Russe 'Pastel SP09 NAI' (light teal)
- Ceramic Glaze 'Frosty mint' (pastel green)
- Quo by Orly 'Little miss sunshine' (yellow)
- China Glaze 'Peachy keen' (light orange)
- OPI 'Mod about you' (pastel pink)
- Quo by Orly 'Lilac lust' (pastel purple)



1 comment:

  1. That's so cool!!!! I really get what you aim to do! Did you achieve it in another mani?

    ReplyDelete