Tuesday, September 17, 2013

One Stroke Flowers (Adventures with Acrylic Paints!)



Hey Guys!  It's Lisl.  I am just so excited to share this new manicure with y'all!  This is my first foray into the one stroke technique!  I first saw pictures of one stroke flowers on Pshiiiit, and knew I had to give them a try.  



I got new acrylic paints from the Born Pretty Store: my first Born Pretty Store purchase!  As I waited for them to arrive, I got pumped up/educated on the one stroke technique by watching an unreal number of youtube videos on the subject.   There are a lot of good ones, but I found this one to be particularly helpful.


Then, the day came for me to do my one stroke manicure.  I started out with a couple of coats of OPI My Private Jet (momentary diversion: I've heard around the interwebs that there are several different versions of My Private Jet that have been made. Apparently I own the most sucky one, but I still love it).


I also mixed some blue and green acrylic paint together to make a turquoise-y blue.  To do the flowers I used a small, angled brush from my MASH nail art brush set.  I wet the brush then dipped one side in white paint and the other in blue.  I then blended the colors by doing a few short brush strokes on a piece of paper.


To make each petal, I took the brush and sort of wiggled it up and down (with the blue side facing away from what would eventually become the center of the flower).  If I felt like the flower was too blue or too white, I'd add a little bit of whatever shade I was lacking to the brush, and go over the petal again.  The technique is a little hard to explain with words, so I would definitely recommend youtube.


Finally , to define the flowers, I used a striper brush dipped in white acrylic paint to draw fine borders around each petal!


This was definitely one of my favorite manicures I've ever done (it was a left hand only manicure though, I don't trust myself to be able to do it with both hands).  If any of y'all have had any experience with one strokes let us know in the comments!  It seems like there are a lot of different variations on the theme that can be done, I'd love to see what other people have tried out!


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