Summer Sunset Free Hand Nail Art

Hello all and welcome!

As I live in Australia, it is currently summer. It's very warm and sunny, so I thought, why not post some summer nail art?
This is my second attempt at free hand nail art (see my first here) and, although they are not perfect, I still like them. I thought this would be a good thing to share with you all. Everyone has to start somewhere no matter what they're doing, so I'm happy to share this experience with you.

Here we go!

 Summer Sunset Free Hand

As you can see, they are far from perfect, and I have some streaking from my top coat. I am not going to lie, I had a lot of difficulty with this mani, but by the end I was happy. I'd learnt a few things, and I loved them.

I bought these two colours (Hot Tamale - Sally Hansen & Mexican Madness - Australis) from Priceline one day and realized they were the perfect shades for this exact nail art. 

Hot Tamale is an amazing, show stopping red-orange colour which I love more than I thought I would. Mexican Madness is a typical Barbie hot pink. I do love this colour in this nail art, but it is not a colour I would wear on its own. Having said that, this was the first Australis nail polish I bought, and I loved it. The colour is so pigmented, which means it's a one coat. I have since bought more Australis because of this. 

Summer Sunset Free Hand

I started with one coat of Mexican Madness, then used a sponge to create the gradient with Hot Tamale. Here's where the difficulties started. For someone reason, the polish was absorbing and drying on the sponge too quickly, which caused small chunks of the sponge to dispense on my nails. I tried using tweezers to remove them but they were already cemented in. So, I carried on. I used a long, thin striping brush with Lady In Black - OPI to draw the trees, birds & the ground silhouettes. Initially when applying Lady In Black, it looked completely solid. It wasn't until I'd finished that I realized most of it wasn't opaque. I have since learnt that I will need to paint over them next time. Lastly, I added a top coat, which you can see on some nails left behind bubbles & caused streaks in the images. 

This nail art has probably been my biggest learning experience. I've done gradients before, but none quite as intense as this. I have done more free handing since this, and I believe I just need to continue practicing.

Have you done any free handing? What were your experiences like? Leave a comment!

Thanks for stopping by!