Nail of the Week: One stroke flowers and leaves on Essie's "smooth sailing"

One stroke flowers and leaves (left hand)

closeup of one stroke flower

one stroke flowers and leaves (right hand)

Essie's Smooth Sailing

Yes this week it's more practice with the one stroke painting technique. In case you missed my last couple of blogposts with this technique I will link them here  and here. One stroke is a painting technique that involves using a flat or angled tip brush and soaking each end of the brush in two different colors and swirling them onto a flat surface in a wave pattern to produce a leaf or petal shape. I am still a beginner at this but I think I'm slowly getting better. This youtube video is a great example of one stroke technique and the different looks you can achieve with it.

I used Essie's "smooth sailing" as my background color. I'm not sure why Ross is all of a sudden selling Essie polishes here and there but if you manage to snag them there they are only $3 each, rather then the $8 they usually retail for. It was hard to photograph this color because they always seemed too blue or too purple but it is actually a beautiful, slightly shimmery periwinkle. Yes this desgin would probably have looked ideal over black but I'm trying to break out of that mold and actually incorporate color and I really loved this one. I used acrylic paints for the design which I purchased at my local joann's crafts for only $0.59 and I used a flat tip brush and a tiny dotting tool to achieve the design and highlight. As always when you use acrylic paint you must use a top coat or it will simply wash off. Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!!

Supplies
1) nail polish: Essie "Smoorh Sailing" #756: I purchased this for $3 from Ross but most Essie polishes retail for $8
click here to purchase this polish
2) Topcoat: NYC in a New York Minute "Grand Central Station" #202: $1.99 most drugstores
click here to purchase this topcoat
3) Nail art brushes: I purchased a set of 15 nail art brushes (which include the two I used in this design for $2.85
click here to purchase nail art brushes

*all acrylic paints are Joann's Craft Essentials paints purchased at joann's for $0.59 each

1) fire engine red #72126
2) Cantalope #72128
3) real green #72015
4) grasshopper #72133