Going for Gold

Going for Gold

These nails are a great idea if you're heading off to an Olympic event or even just wanting to make an entrance at a friends Olympic themed party.

Using lead pencil on your acrylic is a quick and effective way of creating delicate drawings and surprisingly the acrylic base makes for a good surface to draw on. I created the flags on this olympic step by step in lead as a backdrop for the Olympics rings, which I created using Be Creatives Gel paint. 

Prepare the nails and sculpt out a free edge in white to give you a white background. I have created a colour fade from nail bed cover pink to white.

 Cap the whole nail in clear acrylic, make sure you create your arch placement and structure.

File and refine the shape of your nail, finally buff with a 240 grit buffer. do not buff to a high shine at this stage.

Using a HB pencil, sharpened: draw the outlines of the flags you have chosen, I have drawn, the Canadian, American, Chinese and Dutch flags. Obviously the Union Jack too.

Continue to colour in the flags, applying different pressure to the different shadings of the flag colours.

I have used a fine detailing brush dipped in water to crisp up the lines, you can also use some white acrylic paint to high light the white parts of your flags.

Apply a gel top coat to your flags to seal in the lead drawings.

Using the white gel paint, create the 5 rings of the Olympics symbol spanning over the 4 fingers. it is better to start with the centre ring first and work your way out. Cure this for 2 minutes under a UV lamp or 30 seconds under an LED.

Now apply the colours, red, blue, yellow, green and black, this represents the different continents. Cure between each colour application briefly and then do a final cure.

Finally apply another layer of gel top coat to seal in your design and protect it. 

Using Be Creative’s gel paint over the top of gel top coat will give you an almost 3D effect, without ruining your drawing.