Friday 29 November 2013

Playing catch up with 'October Week' - Nail Art Challenge, Inspired by an Artist - Jackson Pollock

So as you will have gathered by now, I've spent some time off from my blog due to personal circumstances and now that I am finally back to it I'm trying to catch up on some mani's I've missed out on. 

For several weeks before I  was forced to take time off from my blog, I was taking part in a weekly 'Iinspired by Artists' nail art challenge, organised by the lovely girls in the facebook group ''Llama Nails'.
I've always been interested in art, I am an artist in my own right as I do many other creative things as well as nails, and this was a challenge I just really wanted to particpate in. It was a 13 week challenge and I kept up with it every week so it really sucks to have missed the last 2 weeks just cos life gets in the way. So the last half of October Week is me catching up with my last 2 nail art challenge mani's, and today's artist is Jackson Pollock. 

Pollock is famous for his abstract expressionism using unique 'dripping' techniques. Honestly, I personally don't think much of his work, it's nothing personal against Pollock or his work, I actually don't think much of any of this modern abstract impressionism, I fail to see what's great about it.

Say what you will, but I just don't think there is much talent or skill in randomly splattering paint onto a canvas. It must be very therapuetic yes, I can even understand how fun it must be just going wild and throwing paint everywhere, and yes, I will even admit that sometimes it can be half interesting to look at, but I do not think that the end results even come close to justifying the value placed on some of these paintings, especially not when a four year old is capable of coming up with something very similar! So as interesting as the technique may be, in my opinion it just does not require much talent. I would even go so far as to say that this abstract impressionism is just a bit of a cop out, and I find it a little unjust that someone who basically just paintballs a white screen could come under the same description and title as real amazing talent like Michelangelo, Van Gogh or Picasso, now these guys got talent!

So anyways, now you know how I feel about abstract impressionism, let's move on to the nails! I decided not to take inspiration from any partiular painting of pollocks, I find his choice of colours a little bland actually, so I just decided to stick with the style and do my own thing, and as I'm offiicially entering into the southern hemisphere summer I went for bright neon colours. For this mani I used my sister in law Taisa's nails as my own are not great at the moment, and I didn't realise until after she had already removed the paint job and I saw the picture, that there was something dodgy going on with my camera settings when I took the picture. So the pic wasn't great quality, and I've had to photoshop the shit out of it to get the colours right. 

It took more talent to do the adjustments in photoshop than it did to achieve this effect anyway :)


To do this mani I first painted a base coat of Sinful Colours 'Snow Me White'. I then filled a plastic cup with water, dropped a couple of drops of one colour polish onto the surface of the water, and then sprayed the polish covered water with hairspray to break it up into interesting patterns, and then my girl dunked her nails in to pick up the patterns. Then we picked the next colour and repeated the process. I just used 3 colours in the water, the blue (which came out green on top of other colours) is Jesse's Girl 'Mermaids Lagoon', the pink is Mode 'Love Me', and the orange is a new Brazilian polish that was given to me as a gift by my other sister in law, Thats in another house across the street and I can't be bothered to go get it and see the name right now (lolz) but I'm gonna swatch it for you all in the next couple of weeks anyways, so no worries! 

Of course, I finished everything off with a nice layer of top coat, here I tried another brazilian brand Risque 'Gloss and Shine' I haven't put it to the real test yet, so I will let you know how I feel about it later!

So this is my Pollock mani, I like the colours I used, I think the effect looks pretty darn funky, but I still insist that it really didn't take any skill or talent to do! :)

Tomorrow I will be finishing my October themed week before resuming normal activities, with the last of the nail art challenge series, and this time it's pick your favourite artist! A lot of girls in the group struggled with this one as they found it really hard to choose, I however, had no difficulty at all as there is one artist in particular who always wins for me, and in my opinion is responsible for some of the most beautiful paintings in existence. I love his style, I love his use of colour and pattern, I love his choice of subjects and I love what he expresses in his images, so be sure to catch up with me tomorrow so I can share this amazing artist with you all, and finally complete this challenge!


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