Artsy Wednesday - use a colour you usually hate

Here we are at Wednesday again, the weeks are whizzing away!  I can't believe it's May already.

The Artsy Wednesday challenge this time is to create nailart based on a colour you usually hate. 

Well, I don't hate any colour, but the colour I like least on me, and wear the least, is red.  I get lobster fingers extraordinaire.  I don't know who said it, but somebody wise once said "there's no such thing as the wrong colour, just the wrong shade", and I agree wholeheartedly with this.  If I am going to wear red, I'll usually stick with maroon reds rather than bright primary reds.

So, to stick with the theme, I've used the bright primary reds that I don't usually wear in this challenge.  It's two designs for the price of one this time.  I did one design, and although I liked it, it didn't seem very inspired so I did another one which I preferred.  But as I've done them now, I may as well show you both.

Backwardly, I'll start with the second design, as it's the one I prefer.  It's a take on the the Russian Doll design which I originally did (here) and I kept telling myself I'd return to.  Despite the fact that it's not perfect, I love the colour combo.  The red is Nails Inc St James, and the pink is Sinful Colours Innocent:

I have to admit, if I'd have remembered how long Innocent takes to dry, I'd have used a different pink, but am loving the raspberry ripple colour combination.

Here's a pic in the shade:

This design was really easy to do, and it doesn't need any nailart tools at all.  All you do is paint your nails red, use the pink to paint them again, but a bit further inside your nail leaving a border, then the red over the top of that, and keep going until you have a design you're happy with.  A top coat to smooth the layers (I used Seche Vite), and you're done.  In real life this was a super punchy design, and I'd like to try it in some other colour combinations. 

So, the original design I did was a stamping design.  I painted my nails with a different red, Rimmel Lasting Finish in Double Decker Red.  I tested a few polishes over it, and the one I liked the most was Nails Inc Old Park Lane.  You can see a swatch of Old Park Lane (here) if you want to see it full nail.  Here's how my design looked:

I used some studs (which I got from Amazon) on my ring finger, and I tried to mirror the stamping design.  The plate I used was Gals GA3, which kind of reminds me of either leaves, or the pattern you get in metal stairs on fire escapes.  Either way it goes nicely with the red I think.  Here it is in the shade:

My cleanup wasn't brilliant, but never mind.  I'm considering getting some neat acetone so cleanup is a bit more straightforward, but for some reason I couldn't find it in Superdrug or Boots, so it looks like I'll have to order it online.

As I said earlier in the post, I didn't feel that this stamping design was 'Artsy' enough, but actually looking at the pictures, it's starting to grow on me.

So what do you think, do you have a favourite? Is there a colour you usually keep away from like me with reds?

Don't forget to check out what all the other Artsy Wednesday girls came up with:

Michelle - Lab Muffin http://www.labmuffin.com/

Alanna - Pretty Purple Polish http://www.prettypurplepolish.com/

Maria - Maria's Nail Polish Blog http://mariasnailpolishblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Melanie - Nail & Polish http://nailandpolish.blogspot.co.uk/

Jessica - Beauty Gnome http://beautygnome.blogspot.co.uk/

Emily - An Accent Nail http://anaccentnail.blogspot.co.uk/

Ameerah - Valiantly Varnished http://www.valiantlyvarnished.com/

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~