Waves for WNAC2016 (with Pictorial)

Hello friends and welcome to my second post of he week! These days, I've been working around 6 days a week at this small family diner type place and it's been very difficult to keep my nails long or square. It's very tricky for me to keep my nails in a square shape since the corners always manage to chip off no matter how careful I am. I really enjoy the look of square nails on my hands though, they make my short stubby fingers look more elegant; but I guess I'll have to have short little nubs for the time being since they're the most practical.

While scrolling through instagram yesterday, I made the decision to join in the Weekly Nail Art Challenge once more. I quite enjoy how WNACs are planned out and how the prompt dates always correspond with my schedule.  The monthly theme for June 2016 is the beach (how fitting!) and the first prompt is water inspired nails. This prompt gave me that little push I needed to do a nail design that I've had saved in the back of my mind for a while, but was too lazy to do. 

These nails are inspired by a woodblock print by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai named The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. Hokusai makes wonderful woodprints and I especially love pieces of his work that involved water because they have so much movement and power in them. Obviously, my version of them take on a more simplified and line-art like approach. I tried very hard to create more movement in the waves using the black lines. I also added little tiny birds to fill up the negative above the waves and to make it look like an ocean scene.

Read on to see my tips and tricks fo creating these nails (and a step by step pictorial)

• Start off with a nude base (I used NYC's Poppin' Champagne), you can also use a bases of different colors like blue or purple but I wanted the waves to stand out
• Draw your waves out with a thin paintbrush and black acrylic paint. Make sure your waves are concave and the peaks are more crescent shaped.
• Add a line to sepeate the crest (white part) of the wave from the rest of it, and then some lines underneath to create some movement/structure
• Fill in your waves, being careful not to cover up all of the black lines created in the previous step (but if you do, simply go back and fix them with a thin paint brush). 
• I used two blue colours to fill up my waves; a lighter and a darker blue color. The darker color was put on first and the light was used to give the waves more dimension.
• After the bodies of the waves are filled, use a white color to fill in the crest of the waves.
• You can choose to use a additional bit of white to give the waves some highlights. Do not over do this though!
• Add in some very simplified birds (shaved like a very open letter "V") using black paint or polish. This step is optional.
• Seal off your design with a top coat & you're done!