These colourful nails were inspired by the messages of love sent on postcards by Victorian gentlemen to their sweethearts. The Victorians had a whole language of love represented by different flowers. The meaning of pansies is thoughts of you.

I produced them with a technique I developed a year or two ago. This involves mixing a thin top coat gel with small amounts of acrylic paints to form a translucent tinted glaze. This is applied thinly and the design built up gradually to give a realistic look reminiscent of painted china. The hand painted gel design is then complimented by the application of matching flowers in three-dimensional acrylic.

STEP 1

Buff shine off tips and paint on a layer of yellow gel with a small brush. Cure in a UV lamp.

STEP 2
Use rose pink gel to paint over the base area of the tip and gently feather out the colour to overlap the yellow. Cure and cleanse dispersion layer.

STEP 3
Mix a tinted glaze with purple acrylic paint and clear top coat gel. Use no more than 50% paint when tinting your paint.

STEP 4
Paint on the outline of your purple pansies with the glaze using a very fine nail art brush. Cure.

STEP 5
Repeat steps 3 and 4 with a ruby colour.

STEP 6
Start to fill in the petals with more of the tinted glaze, adding layers of paint and curing between them until you have built up the intensity of colour you require

STEP 7
Add in leaves and stems etc to your pansies using a green tinted glaze. Cure.

STEP 8
Add in shadows to the background to give a softer and more realistic appearance to your design. Cure.

STEP 9
Using acrylic paint alone finish final detailing of the flower centres.

STEP 10
Coat entire nail design with clear top coat gel and cure.

STEP 11
Now, using glitter mixed into to clear acrylic powder, I added a little bit of subtle background sparkle for my three dimensional pansies.

STEP 12
Each 3D pansy is added using a flat sable brush and forming the flower petals separately and overlapping one another slightly.

STEP 13
Leaves and centres of the flowers are then added with more coloured acrylic.

STEP14
Final details are then placed using acrylic paint and a very fine nail art brush.

Photographs by Susan Loasby

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