Before & After: Inspired by Monet

Hello!

First of all, OMG, my blog threw up on itself, and a bunch of posts got released that I hadn't intended! I saved them on the wrong date, and my apologies if you got a bunch of 'page not founds'. It was not a pretty thing. ::shudders::

Second, on to the real post for today! This week our theme in my Llama Nails 'Inspired By An Artist' challenge was 'Inspired by Monet'.

This is the big one for me--Monet is my favorite Impressionist, and Impressionism is my favorite type of art, so I guess by the transitive property, that makes Monet my favorite artist. Not that there aren't a bunch of other one giving him quite a run for his money...but he'll always have a special place in my heart. Which makes this one again fun but intimidating. :)

Here is the work I used as my Inspiration, Monet's Saint-George Majeur au crepuscule (San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk):

(Source)

I went on and on about Impressionism in my Degas post, so all I'll say here is that Impressionism is often about playing with lighting effects. And I figured, what's the most awesome way that nail artists play with lighting effects? Holos, of course!

So, I started out by doing a gradient to capture the sunset rainbow of the painting. I used two holos for the blue and green (Mentaliy Seduce, a Cerulean blue I showed you yesterday; Mentality Charm, a medium moss green holo); for the yellow-orange I used China Glaze Sun Worshipper (a neon), and for the red I used China Glaze Snap My Dragon. I did a very coarse gradient, didn't smooth it too much so it would look like little brush strokes where the color started to blend into each other. Finally, I busted out the acrylic paints, and painted the church in shades of red-blue-purple:

Ah, Venice...

I love the way the holo looks like sunlight reflecting off the sky and water, as it would in an actual sunset, and I love the stippled effect that aaaallllmost looks like it could be brushstrokes. I'm not sure if Monsieur Monet would like it, but I think he'd give me a quick, tiny approving nod for attempting to use my media to mimic the effects in the painting. :)

Thanks for taking a look! I'm also going to link below a post I did a while back that was done in the style of Monet; that manicure was one of the reasons I was so excited to do this particular challenge. :)

Big hugs and much love!
M.