Watercolor painting of nails is one of the leading trends in modern nail art. Such a manicure is expensive, it fascinates, delights and does not allow you to look away. Since opinions on materials and technology itself are contradictory today, it is worthwhile to dwell on this topic in detail and indicate its nuances.
Materials and Tools
Watercolor design is called because outwardly it has a resemblance to artistic watercolor. These are the same halftones, lightness and translucency of paints, the use of a liquefied consistency and a light spreading effect. But contrary to the prevailing opinion, they use in their work not at all children’s, but artistic watercolor paints. They differ in the composition and form of release, and also gently lie on the work surface.
However, far from all such pigments lie on the nail so that another layer can be applied on top of one layer. Therefore, you need to thoroughly approach the choice of materials for watercolor design.
They are painted on nails with special manicure brushes. As a rule, they are very thin, differ in length and thickness. For example, the brush size can be not only zero, but also labeled two zeros.
Watercolor paints are bred with ordinary cold water, and therefore problems with consistency in work usually do not arise. In the same way as when working with a paper sheet, a palette is used to dilute paints, obtain the necessary tones, and perform color overlay. In addition, in the work you can use acrylic paints, which also include dilution with water.However, they are distinguished by the nuance that after drying they cannot be removed from the brush, and therefore, in the process of work, it will be necessary to ensure that the brush does not dry out.
If one tool is changed with another if you need to choose a tool of a different thickness, You will have to immediately wash the used brush. In addition to watercolors and acrylics, some artists can use diluted gel polish for this technique. It is necessary to breed it because the gel polish itself has a thick consistency for the pattern. As a thinning agent, you can use top or clinser.
Background preparation features
Perform a watercolor design on a prepared base, working with gel polish. Since coatings of this type have their own characteristics in the application technology, initially they create a background for the drawing, following all the rules for its layer-by-layer execution. It is he who will be a kind of canvas for design. In work, you will have to use a drying lamp, without which the compositions used will not dry.
First, they prepare the nail, remove the cuticle and pterygium around it, give it the desired shape, and clean out all that is superfluous. After carry out the removal of gloss from the nail plate itself. After this, a layer of base, pigment and top is applied, each of them is dried immediately after application in a special lamp. After the top is dried, the surface under the pattern is buffered (treated with a soft grinder) to obtain a slightly rough surface. After that, you can draw on it with water-based paints.
How to draw?
You do not need to wet anything further, the watercolor effect is achieved due to the lightness of the texture of the colors themselves. They can immediately fill the basis of the future pattern, using a very light pigment, well diluted with water. Due to the liquid consistency, the paint will lie on the background with a soft transition of the degree of intensity. You can highlight some areas, try in some places to set off the necessary zones.
In fact, the work resembles the work of the artist, except in a smaller format. Gradually, colors shade the desired areas, paint penumbraes, highlight the necessary parts of the picture, some work out more, others are left blurry. It should be borne in mind that the paint will dry very quickly during operation, because it will be diluted with a tiny amount of water. Therefore, for the effect of smooth flowing from one color to another, it is necessary to work quickly.
To make the desired image more beautiful, it is useful to use the finished picture. Looking at it, it will be easier to see where and what should be emphasized with specific shades of the colors used. The method of work is noteworthy in that the colors can be mixed together, getting new shades and midtones. As a rule, such drawings are not overloaded with the number of layers, they are only made brighter by drawing a specific part of the image.
When you need to brighten any elements of the picture, the colors are mixed with white pigment. At the same time, white color may dominate in some used tones, since this can create the effect of lightness. However, do not bleach the texture too much: we must not forget about the translucency of the shades used.
You can add bright spots directly to the nail, helping the brush to spread to the right place in the picture.
Brushes in the work change as necessary. The larger the area you need to paint with them, the thicker the brush can be. At the end, not all are emphasized, but only some contours and elements of the drawing, thereby leaving it light and translucent. It is worth considering that the smaller the stroke and the finer the outline of the line, the more similar the watercolor effect will be.
It is important to consider the need for shading the background, for which more water is added to the paint used. This technique will enhance the effect of watercolor on accent nails. Performing the contours in some places of the picture, they try to draw less water on the brush.To do this, use special soft brushes designed for watercolor.
To make the lines smooth and confident, the brush should be placed perpendicular to the nail.
You can draw watercolor paintings in different ways. Sometimes the master performs an ordinary blot on an accented nail, and after drying it paints its contours, for example, in the form of petals, thereby creating a beautiful flower. In addition, you can perform a preliminary sketch of the future drawing, displaying approximate contours. The base is filled with a gradual overlay of color and shades. After that, sometimes dashed lines are sometimes applied to the edges of the print, often underlining the outline with several tones in addition to black.
How to seal?
Close the design for a specific technology. However, first you need to wait until the drawing applied to the nail with watercolor or acrylic paints is completely dry. Otherwise, it will smear when applying the sealing material.
You can overlap the design with a rubber top or with a special “two in one” base top.
There is one drawback to using a rubber top. After they overlap the design, they will have to apply a regular top on top of it to give the surface a gloss effect. If you use the option "two in one", just one overlapping layer with its mandatory drying in a special lamp. This material is convenient in that it seals all layers of the coating very reliably, and therefore there will be no need to correct the plate for the entire time while the manicure will adorn female hands. After the sealing layer is dried in the lamp, it remains to remove the dispersion layer.
Expert Advice
Novice masters who decide to get acquainted with an interesting watercolor design technique, you need to listen to the main recommendations of masters in the field of nail art.
- Using watercolor in the technique, it is important to consider that it requires a matte finish. From gloss it will slide down, regardless of its consistency and manufacturer.
- Using acrylic paints or gel polish, you can not pay attention to the type of varnish used for the substrate. In order to seamlessly execute the design, in this case it is enough to remove the dispersion sticky layer from the working background.
- The color of the substrate is preferably white or light. Dark and bright tones of the base will distort the beauty of the picture and spoil the watercolor effect.
- Performing drawings in the wet technique, you need to add more water to the paint, and the strokes themselves should spread slightly, overflowing from one tone to another, which is possible only when the paint has not yet dried.
- If correction is necessary, wash the paint. For this, a semi-dry brush is used and the excess pigment intensity is selected with its pile. The same trick can correct work flaws.
- You can use the washing technique, in which one layer is applied to another with a short drying in the lamp (2 seconds each). So you can gain brightness in certain places of a particular image element.
- To complete your first designs more beautifully, you can focus on the examples of experienced craftsmen, following their video tutorials step by step, every moment of drawing a watercolor painting.
To learn how to draw beautiful abstract roses on nails using the technique of avariel painting, see the video below.
