Dorkface Inspired Nail Art

Hello! How are we all today? I sincerely hope you have had a much better day than me... I started the day by leaving my house, crossing the road and then slipping on the wet pavement resulting in a scratched foot, bruised knees, dirty trousers and half the skin taken off my elbow. Unfortunately I was on the way to the train station for my volunteering placement so I couldn't go back to bed and hide for the rest of the day, boooo. Anyhow, I'm now safely tucked up in bed finishing this post! This post/nail art has been a long time coming and I'm so pleased to have finally got round to doing it! I recently discovered the lovely and very talented lady that is Jemma, owner of Dorkface. Not only does she have a great blog and a beautiful instagram, but she also has an Etsy shop with amazing artwork and other fab bits! Way, way back in January (I said it was a long time coming) I asked her if she would be happy for me to try and recreate one of her paintings as nail art. Fortunately for me, she said yes!

As I said earlier, Jemma has done lots of lovely artwork but obviously I need something that I would actually be able to recreate, especially with my very rusty freehand skills. In the end I settled for this picture as it was one of the first ones I saw when I first discovered Jemma and I really like it!

I tried to find polishes in my collection that were as close a match as I could, some I already regret and have realised I have better matching shades but hey. In the end I settled for lots of polishes from Barry M. 'Pinking Out Loud' was the base and the other polishes were 'Guava', 'Prickly Pear', 'Surfboard', 'Popsicle' and 'Need for Speed'. I also used 'White Van Girl' and 'Beauty' from 'Ard As Nails and a gold stamping polish from Born Pretty Store. This was my first time doing any sort of abstract nail art so it was definitely interesting to see how successful I was. A combination of the dry brush technique, dotting tools and thin nail art brushes helped me to come up with this jazzy final result!

I wasn't sure how similar it was going to look to Jemma's original artwork but actually I was pretty pleased with the end result! The one thing I had real trouble with (so gave up lol) was the blue tear drop shapes. I just didn't have a small and thin enough brush to make it look anywhere near decent. There are two things this recreation taught me: 1. I need new and better nail art brushes 2. I should leave the beautiful abstract artwork to Jemma! I also gave the design a matte finish to see what it looked like using 'Wassamatta?' from Sparklea Nail Polish.

So there we have it... a lovely abstract design inspired by a gorgeous print from Jemma! Jemma's beautiful piece of art is available to buy here for a very reasonable price of £3/3.50 depending on which size you want. Obviously you can also get many other fab things from her shop so do look around! It's always important to support small businesses and I know Jemma will really appreciate it as she recently announced some exciting news...she's got a baby on the way! I am so happy for her and I can't wait to follow her journey on social media. 

Thank you so much to Jemma for letting me attempt this and for creating wonderful pieces of art. Once I (finally) get a job after a uni, I intend to buy lots of things from her shop. At the moment I am especially loving this cute new rainbow pin.

So ladies and gents, what did you think of my nail art recreation? Also, because I can't decide....matte or shiny?

Abigail xo


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