City Lights

I painted this design earlier last week, but haven't put the tutorial up until now because of long work days, a lack of sleep, and migraine headaches. Fun stuff. Anyways, I really like how this turned out and got a lot of compliments on the design. It was somewhat inspired by 9/11 and the really pretty sunsets we've been having around here lately. I love the colors of sunsets!

What you're going to need:

• clear polish (for that base and top coat)
• white polish
• blue polish
• purple polish
• black polish
• yellow polish
• striping brush
• dotting tool
• make-up sponge
• nail polish remover/acetone

This tutorial incorporates a technique that I haven't shown on here before - sponging to get a gradient effect. A sponged gradient is a good way to get a smooth transition from one color to another. In this case, we're transitioning from blue to purple - think sunsets people.

First off, paint on that base coat to protect your natural nails. I tried a new base coat this time and I must say that I was quite pleased. This base coat, Orly's Bonder, is an adhesive base coat which helps the polish stick to your nails better. This is especially important in nail art because you usually have quite a few layers of polish on. My designs usually last a day or two before they start chipping or peeling off - this design lasted almost a whole week! I was so pleased with this base coat...

 Next, paint all of your nails white. This is going to help our sponged colors show up better on your nails. I used Finger Paint's "Paper Mache".

Now we're going to use that make-up sponge. Using one of the flat sides, paint your blue and purple polishes side by side. It needs to be painted on wide enough to cover your nail.

Once you've got your polish on we're going to lightly sponge it onto each of your nails. The two colors I used were Sinful Color's "Why Not" (blue) and Orly's "You're Blushing" (purple). You'll want the purple near the tip of your nails. Again, we're going for a sunset look so you could probably even use pink or orange here if you wanted a different look. I suggest repainting your make-up sponge between each nail so that you will have the same look for each nail.

After sponging your nails, apply a clear top coat to help smooth the color transition. I also used a new top coat on this manicure and am in love with it also. I used Seche Vite's Dry Fast Top Coat. It smells like straight spray paint, but works wonderfully. It is definitely the fastest drying top coat I've used and didn't cause any shrinkage of the nail polish on my nails.It gives an awesome shine too.

Next we are going to paint on the outlines of the buildings. You'll want to make them different heights to create a city skyline look. You could probably skip this step, but I think that if you use a regular polish brush the buildings will have a rounded look instead of square corners. Use that striper or striping brush with black polish to create the outlines. I used Finger Paint's "Black Expressionism". I used the striping brush to add little lightening rods to some of the taller buildings.

Now you can use the regular polish brush to fill in the lines.

The last part of the design is to use your dotting tool and yellow polish to create little lighted windows on your buildings. I used Sinful Color's "Unicorn" yellow polish.

I added a small crescent moon to each of my thumbs to show that it was night time, but that is completely optional...and also really cute I think. Paint on a clear top coat, and your done!