Aussie Nails Monday - Stripes!

My relationship with striping tape is much like my past romantic relationships - it's beautiful, but it can wind me up so fast I go from mellow to Medea in ten seconds flat. If you haven't heard of it before, striping tape is really really fine tape, usually metallic, that you can use in nail art by either sticking it down and using it as part of the design, or painting over it and taking it up again to make beautiful crisp straight lines.

In theory anyway. In reality, this latest attempt is the closest I've been able to get to any sort of success with the stuff, and usually my face ends up much like this;

@lilyandjinks on Instagram put this up a week ago, and it still makes me giggle

Aussie Nails Monday - Galaxy

I've been pretty slack with these lately, and this only just qualifies, but what the hell. The theme for Aussie Nails Monday this week was "galaxy", a really neat type of nail art where people use sponging and sparkles to create the impression of outer space on their nails. When done well, it looks absolutely breathtaking, so be sure to check out the other bloggers contributions to this theme - there are some talented artists in this challenge!
I however, am not nearly so talented and have also been rather busy, so my contribution is instead two polishes that remind me of galaxy nails.
First up is an absolutely adorable polish from indie maker Pieta's Polish, called Shooting Stars. While it is admittedly quite tricky to use (the stars need to be placed pretty carefully) , I was so delighted with the results I declare it totally worth the effort. Unfortunately, my photos don't capture the delightful little holo specks in the base, or the blue to purple shimmery colour shift. These photos are all one and a bit coats over Bourjois 1 Seconde Blue.

 

Hurting the eyes, and stirring the heart

 

It's time for another Aussie Nails Monday, and given that this week's theme is "Skittles" (a manicure made up of different designs on every nail) I thought I would take this opportunity to pay tribute to one of my favourite photographers - David LaChapelle.

When I say the name, people always look at me blankly, but I would be shocked if anyone truly didn't recognise ANY of his photos from the last couple of decades. He's shot some of the most iconic images of people like Britney Spears and Angeline Jolie, and has such a distinctive visual style Rhianna blatantly ripped him off for her S'n'M filmclip (and consequently got sued). 

LaChapelle has the world's biggest hard-on for Barbie pink, but the thing I really love about his work is the way he uses photography to examine the grey, nebulous area between sexy and grotesque. The idea of "sexy" is often portrayed as so solid, and straightfoward, and easy to quantify, and the way he pushes the boundaries of sexy to ridiculous and uncomfortable places shows just how mushy an idea it really is.I find artists who play with this idea endlessly fascinating, and to the best of my knowledge Lachapelle was the first to go quite so far in terms of exploring how celebrity, sexy, and the grotesque all work together.

For someone who's work can be so eyeball burningly over the top, I'm also really fascinated by how subtle LaChapelle can be as well, especially in terms of slipping just a touch of uncomfortability under the viewer's skin. I saw an exhibition of his at the Barbican Gallery in London, and was standing enthralled in front of a huge portrait of Lil' Kim. She was in a typical LaChapelle type bedroom set - bright pink walls, ridiculous over the top bed draped with bright white lace that matched the lingerie she was wearing. The friend I went with came up behind me and started saying something like, "Man, this guy sure likes pink..." but suddebnly let out a strangled little squeak noise and physically jumped back. I turned around wondering what the hell his problem was, and he stammered, "There's blood...on her panties...that's the grossest thing I've ever seen..." before staggering away white faced. I looked back and realised there was in fact the tiniest spot of blood on her panties, right over her crotch, just where it would be if a tampon leaked. *I* thought this was a hilarious, clever subversion of a typical "sexy" stereotype, but my friend didn't think it was very funny at all sadly.

These are the photos I used as direct inspiration for this manicure - they're some of his older work, and a bit more restrained than the pictures he's more famous for. I figured I had to think of a design that was actually capable of fitting on my nails! I took inspiration for the background from his iconic garish pink room sets, and then tried to work in an element from each photo I chose.

A Waitress

Big Consumption

Death By Hamburger, 2001

Hopefully you can at least see what I was trying to get at here.

Get it? I used a camera cause he's a photographer...heh heh

I even did the other hand as well!

This was a really challenging design to do - not so much in terms of actual skill, but it terms of having it on for more than the ten minutes it took to take the photos. I am just not a pink person, at all, so I was weirded out to be putting Barbie pink on my nails at all. But when the one I'd chosen happened to dry to a waxy, plastic finish, I started flailing around the house whimpering about being a damn Barbie doll. My Boy very wisely observed that it would hardly be a fitting tribute to LaChapelle if it didn't make me uncomfortable - which just goes to show he DOES actually listen when I go off on my fangirly rants.

As a long time fan, I'm always fascinated to see the ripples of LaChapelle's work in wider popular culture. Apart from the endless list of celebrities who have benefited from doing an "arty" shoot with LaChapelle, his influence on popular music is very easy to see. Rhianna just straight up ripped him off, Nicki Minaj is undoubtably a fan, and Lady GaGa's career has been built on a similar exploration of the intersection of sexy and grotesque. Whether it was deliberate or not, I think her clip for Telephone was a wonderful homage to his style, and his interest in re-examining standard sexy stereotypes - particularly the opening, where she takes the women's prison exploitation tradition so far that the ridiculousness of this sort of fetishisation becomes impossible to ignore.

Do you have suggestions of other artists you think have been influenced by this awesome photographer?

Don't forget to check out the other members of this awesome weekly challenge!

Members:

Elissa - Lissa’s Polish Addiction Bec - Nail Gun XS Marie - Marie’s Manicure Madhouse Sarah - Shatter Me Claire Chantelle - A Polished Prance Teneil -Shades of Phoenix Nicole - The Epitome of Superficiality Bec - Lacquer Dreams Naomi - NananaisNails Eboni - Enamoured With Enamel
Adelle - Adelle1985 (Instagram) Kelly - Kelly's Kolors Rebecca - Polished Peripherals Rosemarie - Every Little Polish Melissa - Mel My Issta Natalie - Walk In My Eyeshadow Jennifer - JennLojko (Instagram) Erin - Erinzi’s Nails Astrid - Lovessweetas (Instagram) Jasmyn - Jas’ Blingtastic Nails
Kate - Mckfresh (Instagram) Jessica - Maedaynails (instagram) Elizabeth - Lili_Bete (Instagram)
Tammy - Jibber Jabber Julia - Messy Mansion Ann - Nailovelogy Theresa It's All About The Polish
Katie - Pretty Polish Please

Neverending Nail Art

 

Aussie Nails Monday 7/01/12 Theme: Animal

As usual, I managed to take this theme and run off somewhere pretty unexpected with it - but that's what you're all here for, right?

When running through my head all the animals that I could use as inspiration, for some reason my brain seized on Falcor from the Neverending Story. I wonder if this is because The Neverending Story is inextricably linked with the despair of realising you're becoming an adult and that you'll never be truly a child again once it starts, and I've got a bit of that going on with my imminent return to my day job. Maybe it's just because I picked up a sweet sky blue polish the other day and was looking to use it. Regardless, here is my effort.

I took my visual inspiration from the movie version, and did what I think is a pretty good impression of Falcor soaring across my nails.

I even painted some clouds for him to fly in on my other hand.

The Neverending Story is the first movie I remember really, really loving, and I would watch my VHS copy over and over if allowed to. Even though I was so scared of the wolf at the end I had to leave the room until it was over, I watched the movie again and again. I've often wondered if this is where my long time obsession with boys with long hair came from. I even put down money to get the actor who played Atreyu, Noah Hathaway, to sign a picture for me last year at a comic con - he looks NOTHING like he did when he was in the movie anymore, but then, I don't look like I did when I loved it either. (In case you're curious, he now runs his own tattoo parlour, and has cut his luscious tresses into a mohawk now.)

My obsession with researching the crap out of things that interest me isn't new - I remember as soon as I found out the movie was based on a book I started a frantic hunt to track down a copy of it. Unfortunately, the single copy in our local library was in the adult section, and being only nine, I wasn't technically allowed to borrow it. Fortunately, I was friends with the librarian and she was kind enough to let me borrow a book as big as my head from a section I wasn't even supposed to be browsing. She appreciated my passion for books, and apparently didn't think the fact the book was translated from German, or intended for readers roughly twice my age would hinder my enjoyment of it. And she was absolutely right.

I loved it so much I immediately decided I was going to be a writer, and started a novel with some rather striking similarities to The Neverending Story. Eventually I gave up on this idea, and the ambition got pushed aside for more pressing matters, like whether that boy at school liked me or not. I have occasionally gone back to writing fiction, but it never lasts. I write some shorts, attempt another draft of the novel I've been working on for over ten years now, but the compulsion always gets swamped by self doubt and the dream gets shoved back under the bed again.

I read this book again a couple of years ago, and ended up weeping for hours over it, because lost dreams are what the book is all about, and as it turns out, it only gets more moving the older you get. 

If you've only seen the movie, you've really missed the best part of the story. The first half is pretty stock standard "for children" fantasy. Bastian hates his life, he gets sucked into a magical world where everything is way more awesome. Only the land is in danger! Oh noes! Of course, Bastian saves the day. This is where the movie ends, but it's actually only about halfway through the book, and while there is a sequel movie, it's pretty dreadful and doesn't capture any of the bleak pathos of the second half of the book. The quick crib notes of the second half of the book are that Bastian sets about rebuilding Fantasia (Fantastica in the English translation of the book), but eventually discovers that for everything he creates, he loses a memory of who he used to be and the life he had before Fantasia. If he keeps going he will become nothing but a shell. While his BFF Atreyu is horrified by this, Bastian is largely unmoved for a long time - he doesn't even remember what he's lost, so why would he stop?

It's a fascinating study of the relationship between power and freedom, and the sliding scale between adulthood and childhood. It warns against leaving your childhood entirely behind, and illustrates the sacrifices that are demanded by power. It asks the reader to decide what they are willing to lose to get what they want, and whether it will really be worth it in the end, while pointing out you have no way of being sure of whether it will be worth it or not until it's over.

Having said all that, it's an incredible book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. If I could get everyone who saw the movie to read the book and really think about it, I have a sneaking hope the world might be a different kind of place.

 And on that inspiring note, be sure to check out the other participants in the Aussie Nail Challenge!

Lissa’s Polish Addiction - Nail Gun XS - Marie’s Manicure Madhouse - Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance -Shades of Phoenix - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams - NananaisNails - Enamoured With Enamel - Adelle1985 (Instagram) - Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Every Little Polish - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko (Instagram) - Erinzi’s Nails - Lovessweetas (Instagram) - Jas’ Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh (Instagram) - Lili_Bete (Instagram) - Jibber Jabber - Messy Mansion - Nailovelogy

If You Didn't Come To Party...

New Year's Eve will always, and forever be linked in my mind to Prince.

Although, come to think of it, a lot of things come back to Prince for me. Say what you will about the man's eccentricities, he has a fuckton of flair and can write a bass hook like no-one's business. He has been apologetically, unabashedly over the top his entire career, and I find that not only sexy, but inspiring. He does what he wants, wears want he wants, and is damn good at what he does behind all that flash. Eline, the very talented writer of A Fluffy Blog (which you should be reading) did a great roundup of Prince's greatest outfits recently, and I was reminded all over again just how much I love this man's chutzpah. I mean, how can you not admire a man with the sheer nerve to appear on stage in a cloud covered suit with matching cuban heels?

I'm restraining myself to one picture, because
if I start on a Prince Outfit Post then we will
be here all day

Apart from the unforgettable song all about New Year's Eve (Please, go look it up on YouTube if somehow have managed not to hear it), his aggressive self belief is also what ties him to this time of year in my head. Even his most strident fans seem express the opinion publically that he's past his prime, that his newer music isn't as good as his old music, that he's lost his touch. Quite apart from the fact that I think this is absolutely not true (listen to Musicology if you don't believe me), I'm blown away by the fact he doesn't care. Prince is just gonna keep doing what Prince gonna do, and the haters can stroll on over to the left.

Every year, the closest I ever get to a New Year's resolution is a vague desire to be happier, to love more, to be less scared, and to be more courageous. So this year I'm going to pin it right down and put it out there - My new Year's Resolution is to Be Like Prince. And with that in mind, here is my contribution to this week's Aussie Nails Monday.


Aussie Nails Monday - Party

For this manicure I went in with the aim of simply adding more and more and more sparkles until it was literally impossible to add any more. And I think I more or less succeeded. 

The polishes I used were Colour Club Halo Hues in Harp On It, Cirque Fascination Street, and Max Factor Fantasy Fire.

To get this effect, I just laid down a good solid base of the Halo Hues, and let it dry for as long as I could stand before sponging the Fascination Street over the top. There are lots of different tutorials around for using sponges to make pretty gradiated effects, but for this one I just painted a stripe of the Fascination Street onto a wedge of kitchen sponge and dabbed it on the top part of the nail until I was happy with it. Then once that was more or less dry, I got my Fantasy Fire and did the exact same thing on the upper third of the nail.

Now if only I had a perfectly tailored holographic suit in a similar gradient to go with it, my life would be complete.

Don't forget to check out the other lovely bloggers who are also in on this challenge!

Nail Gun XS - Marie’s Manicure Madhouse - Tales From The Makeup Bag - Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance - Tee Bee’s Nails - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams - NananaisNails - Enamoured With Enamel - Pretty Polish Please - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Every Little Polish - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - The Polish Haven - Nails In The Desert - Erinzi - Strawbrie - Lovessweetas - Jas' Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh

Good as a Holiday - On My Hands

Aussie Nails Monday - Holidays

The theme for this week's challenge was "Holidays", and in my usual way I interpreted this theme rather liberally. You see, for me, holidays are all about sleep. Sleeping in, nanna naps, lazing around in bed so long you kind of doze off and suddenly it's dark...this is my idea of a holiday. So a cute little snoozing chick expresses what holidays mean to me perfectly.

I am a big fan of the chunky, stark style of artists like Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim), Jim Mahfood (Clerks, Spiderman, and the awfully written but amazingly illustrated Grrl Scouts), and Chynna Clugston (Blue Monday) so I wanted to try and emulate a bit of their style into my design. 

Jim Mahfood's Grrl Scouts

From Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim comics

Chynna Clugston self portrait

 Obviously my work isn't going to be anywhere as good as any of these, but hopefully you can see some of their influence in what came out.

I was ridiculously excited by how well these came out. I must have waggled my fingers at my boy and exclaimed "Lookit! She's SLEEPING! She's all z z z z z z!" at least ten times before he finally asked me to quit it. 

Because I'm pedantic, I was really happy the Z's were still the right way around even when the nails were upside down.

Aww, lookit! She's SLEEPING!

To put this together I used a base of Ulta 3 in Lily White, which was all of 2 bucks. Fantastic value, since something like this is all I can ever see myself using white for. Her little face was done in Sinful Colors Easy Going - this would have been a lot easier if the bottle I picked up had actually had a brush in it like I imagine it's supposed to, but I got it more or less working in the end. The black parts were all done with Sinful Colors Black on Black, because I had read it was excellent for this sort of detail, being really pigmented. And  you know what? All the things I read were totally true. I'd been fooling around with a couple of blacks, trying to find one that wasn't bullshit, and this is by far the best one I've tried. There is also a swipe of a random dark red in her hair, but since you can't really see it I'm not going to go rummage around to try and remember which one it was. 

Don't forget to check out the other lovely ladies who are also in on this challenge!

Nail Gun XS - Marie’s Manicure Madhouse - Tales From The Makeup Bag - Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance - Tee Bee’s Nails - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams - NananaisNails - Enamoured With Enamel - Pretty Polish Please - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Nicki - Every Little Polish - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - The Polish Haven - Nails In The Desert - Erinzi - Strawbrie - Lovessweetas - Jas' Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh - Jessica

Life's A Beach - On My Hands

Aussie Nails Christmas Challenge 17/12 - Beach

Now this theme WAS a challenge. I hate the beach. Like, seriously, hate it. All summer my friends try and drag my pale, pasty self to the beach with them, only to be met with wailing and knashing of teeth from me about how I'll burn, it's too sandy, there are too many people, there are THINGS in the water and please PLEAASE don't make me goooo!! I wasn't really sure how to paint despair in a manicure, so I decided to try and emulate the one thing I like about the beach - the ocean.

 

 I think this turned out MUCH better than my first attempt. Turns out if you're going to do a design, it's best to go all out, because subtlety just gets lost on a canvas so small and shiny. However, I am still absolutely rubbish at keeping my left hand steady, so I went with a much simpler design on my right hand.

 

And of course, if I'm going to do something summer themed it HAS to feature a Slushie. As soon as it gets hot I start living on these things.

For the left hand I used Revlon Top Speed in Ocean for the base, then drew the "waves" on with Rimmel I "Heart" Lasting Finish in Azure, and Chi Chi Salon Formula in Show Me The Money. I put a dab of OPI in Austin-tatious on the ends of the left nails to try and add some oceanic sparkle, but as before, the results were pretty disappointing. Even putting a whole layer over the right nails didn't really do anything but dull the colour differences. I am SO glad I didn't pay full price for that thing- it is literally good for nothing.

Overall though, I'm really proud of this result. Be sure to check out what the other lovely ladies have made of this theme!