Jackson Pollock Inspired Nails

I had seen tutorials for this kind of thing on youtube before, so I thought I'd have a go myself. It's quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever done to my nails. 

I think mine ended up coming out pretty well, so I just wanted to pass on how I did it.

You will need:
A well-ventilated area

Base coat 

Nail polish color to use as your base  

Scotch tape

"Splatter colors" (I used five, but you can do whatever you want - that's the whole point)

As many straws as you have "splatter" colors (or you can cut half that amount of straws in half)

Something to protect your surface (paper towel, newspaper, whatever really)

Top coat

Olive Oil (optional)

Nail polish remover, cotton buds and cotton wool to clean up after the tape is removed (optional)

Step 1: Choose your colors

I drew my inspiration from an actual Jackson Pollock, "6." There are obviously a ton of colors in here, but I chose the ones that I actually had in my nail polish collection and that stuck out to me the most. I ended up using a turquoise color as my base, and splattering on a darker blue first, black second, white third, yellow fourth, and red fifth. If you're using a painting, just look carefully to see what you need to do to get a similar effect. 

Step 2: Paint on one coat of base coat and one coat of base color (turquoise for me). 

Let dry.

Step 3: Tape the skin around your nails

This step was made to make your life easier (as much as it sucks). I skipped this step this time, and clean-up sucked even more. Lesson learned. Just take one piece of scotch tape, and lay it horizontally on the skin under your nail, just covering the cuticle and below (avoid as much of the actual nail surface as possible, or else this will look bad). Take a second piece of tape (longer) and cover the left, top, and right skin surrounding the nail (making a U with the tape around the finger). Again, don't get the tape on the nail, but try to cover as much skin as possible. 

Step 4: The Fun Part

Have your straws cut if you need to, bottles of color ready to go (opened, in the order you want them,  and tops undone - you need to work fast, just like with marbling).

Take your first splatter color and dip the straw into the bottle (you don't have to go too far down, maybe just a centimeter) or use the brush and generously coat the inside of the straw. 

Then blow through the straw onto the nail. This part takes practice. You might get almost no color on the nail, or you might accidentally cover it completely with one color. You really just have to feel this one out.

Repeat for each nail and each color. I like to do all ten nails with the same color first before moving on to splatter with another one. It's just easier.

Step 5: Let dry, and for longer than usual. 

If your nails aren't completely dry by the time you paint on topcoat, your topcoat with smudge your hard work all over.

Step 6: Apply top coat. 

Let dry for a couple minutes, then to speed up the drying time, put olive oil (or any oil really) on your nails. They should harden. Another trick is to put them in a bowl of ice water for a couple minutes, but really, olive oil is less painful.

Your finished result will look something like this...

Anyways, I hope this is helpful and that you'll maybe try it out!
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