Phoenix Fire

Good morning, fellow hobbyists! My friend V emailed me a ton of phoenix and dragon pictures the other day, hoping to have them appear on a nail (possibly hers ;) sometime in the future. While I was originally thinking making decals, I got quickly uninspired when I started to make them. One of those days, le sigh. But when V came over for our weekly dose of So You Think You Can Dance (which I will admit to watching nearly religiously, but it is the only reality/contest show that I watch.) Anyway, she came by as usual, and also as usual, we started brainstorming what to put on her nails. And the phoenix pictures got pulled out again. Within minutes, I had fixated on this one:

And lo, a manicure was born! I did a few trial nails on my nail wheel, and they came out...less clear and crisp than the original picture, but still awesome to look at. We started with a base of Avon Lucky Penny across all the nails except the ring finger, on which we used NYC Black Lace Creme. I used the Lucky Penny to do the base drawing of the phoenix on the ring fingers, and then added some accent strokes with Sinful Colors All About You and Sally Hansen Celeb City.

After the base color, I added a coat of Seche Vite and then dabbed on loose glitter - a bronze solidly across the tips, like a glitter french tip, and then I gradiated red and gold back from the tip, to make an overall feeling of fire. But honestly, the phoenix was the pièce de résistance! (Why, yes, I did have to look up how to spell that, why do you ask? :)

Now realize, when I drew this on her fingernail, it was all very very teeny-tiny! It was a gorgeous, but abstract, phoenix. Imagine our surprise when, after we took pictures, we looked at these and thought - wow, it looks like I planned for that to look like it's got an eye and a beak and everything! When actually, I just did an outline and then added dabs of gold and silver wherever it looked like it wouldn't overwhelm it! ::giggle::

I also made V stop by my office the next day so we could get some picture in the sunshine. We had a bit more difficulty with positioning, of course, since we had to angle for the sun instead of my bathroom with the three light sources set up, but just look at that glitter sparkle and the phoenix is on fire! Totally worth the effort. :)