Before & After: A Very Pollack Halloween

Hello!

Today is the penultimate installment of the 'Inspired By An Artist' challenge in my Llama Nails group. And this week we have the interesting and controversial Jackson Pollack.

Pollack, as you may know, brought a new dimension to art by bringing a new dimension to art--he took the painting off of the easel and made the act of painting the artwork itself. He tried to capture motion, gravity, all of the sorts of forces working on the substances in time and space in the final product of his artwork.

That's great, but dangit, it's October, and that means Halloween!!!

I did find one of Pollack's works that has a Halloween feel to it:

(Source)

Yeah, that's nice. But it ain't near Halloween-y enough for this blog.

So what do I think Pollack would create to do my kind of Halloween justice? Well, let's have ourselves a look.

I started with a base of LeChat (Dare To Wear) Last Leaf, a frosty olive shimmer with a touch of gold shine to it:

LeChat Last Leaf, 3 coats, artificial light

And then I went completely insane all over it.

I stamped over the base with Cheeky jumbo plate D first using Sally Hansen's Lickety-Split Lime and then Orange Impulse; then I used the splatter technique to throw on some Lively Lilac and Going Grape...and since no Halloween splatter is complete without some blood, so I finished up with some Pure Ice Siren. Oh yeah, that's better:

I've discovered that my relationship with splatter manicures is very like my relationship with oatmeal and marshmallow peeps. You see, every so often, I think how awesome it would be to have some oatmeal, or how yummy it would be to have a marshmallow peep. I think to myself 'wow, I haven't had oatmeal/marshmallow peeps in forever! I need to get me some!'. And then, I diligently seek out said oatmeal/peep, and once I have it in my hot little hands, I settle in to savor it. I take a bite, and then instantly realize--I haven't had this for ages because I FLIPPING HATE IT! It's horrendously disgusting!!! To me, oatmeal tastes like cardboard, and marshmallow peeps taste like you accidentally breathed in sugar and it got stuck to your tongue. And I smack myself repeatedly in the head, and promise myself I'll never make this mistake again. But then, in about another year or two...

Yeah, same thing with splatter manis. After a few months, I say to myself 'Hey, you know what would be perfect for this? A splatter mani!'. And then I start to do it, and I /facedesk when I remember exactly why I haven't done one in so long. Because they are horrible, horrible messes that take forever to do and even longer to clean up! Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh.

(which I guess means you can expect to see another one in about 6 months.)

But, you gotta admit...it came out kinda cool, didn't it??

Thanks for taking a look! Hugs and love,
M.

Before & After: Glitter splatter

Hello!

Today's prompt in the 31 Day Challenge is 'splatter'. I wasn't super enthusiastic about this, because when I previously tried the splatter method, I found it to be a lot of mess, waste, and fuss for an effect you can mostly get other ways (you can get a fairly similar look from the saran wrap method if you're strategic about it). But, it's part of the challenge, and I want to do every prompt if possible, so I settled in to do it. And I figured I'd try it with a twist, and see how it looked with a splatter of glitter.

I have one very important piece of advice for any of you who are considering doing a splatter mani with glitter, at least with very small glitters:

DON'T DEW EEEEETTTTT!!!!

No, really. Trust me. The clean-up was demonic--I'm not joking, I fully expect to wake up screaming in a cold sweat from nightmares about not being able to remove the glitter from my fingers, where the more I clean the more it just spreads and spreads and spreads and spreads all over my fingers and my hands until my whole body is covered in teeny pieces of glitter...::sobs frantically::... Clean up on a regular splatter mani is bad enough, but when you introduce glitter into the mix, it's just abso-flippin-lutely insane. If you decide you must try it, please please please at least put tape on your fingers first. Promise me...Don't be stupid like me...::sobs again::

Okay, end rant.

For my base color, I used Mentality Seduce, a really beautiful blue indie linear holo that I will be reviewing shortly--I have several of Mentality's holos and want to review them all together, but the sunshine is not cooperating, lol! So for now I'll show you this one quickly:

Mentality Seduce

On top of that lovely base, I decided to splatter some Sinful Colors Call You Later, a teeny green glitter that has yellow-gold glitters mixed in. After that, I stamped over it using Sally Hansen Lickety-Split Lime and Cheeky Plate D:

Splish-Splash I was takin' a glitter bath...

Note the glitter left on my fingers after ages and ages of clean-up...grrr...

Hmmm...which way is up?

What do you think? I really love how it all works together. I'm in a very green + blue mood lately, and I like how the stamping works with the glitter to create as similar pattern with a different texture. The truth is, I decided to stamp on it because I had some bald spots from the splatter technique, and I'm glad I did, because I think this is way more interesting than if I'd just left the glitter alone.

Thanks so much for reading, and please check out what the other challengers did, linked below! :)

Xoxox,
M.