I will be the first to admit to you that my skills when it comes to gel polish are a little bit newbieish and because I'm a perfectionist who really, really doesn't like to be bad at things that can have the outcome of me avoiding it entirely. That said, I'm really kind of in love with some of the things you can do with gel polish that you just can't with traditional polish and I'm hoping to really work on my skills in the medium this year and play more with some of those techniques. For today's mani, here's one of those techniques that I just sort of decided to give a go... and then promptly fell absolutely madly in love with.

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I have to admit, I fell in love with this watercolor technique literally the moment I tried it and I suspect it might become one of those techniques that I end up going back to over and over again because it's so versatile and surprisingly easy. I started by applying a generous layer of peel off base coat, as I always do with gel polish, to all of my nails and let that dry down completely. It's actually really important for this technique that your peel off is completely dry, so give it a little extra time if you're going to try this.

Next, I applied blobs of the three polishes I would be using for my watercolor to a palette and grabbed for a narrow nail art brush with a flat tip. I found that this brush really, really did a lot of the work for me on this one and wouldn't recommend using a rounded or angled brush for this technique. Next, I dabbed ever so slightly into my first polish and applied in small swipes to opposing corners of the nail. Next, without curing my first color, I cleaned off my brush with alcohol and repeated the same step with the next polish color at the other two corners of the nail. Finally, I went in with my third color and used it at the center of the nail as well as small accent points just to add some contrast and texture, using very light pressure so as not to remove the polish or overblend. At this point I cured that layer and then repeated the steps for a second coat to get the final look I wanted. 

Once I was finished with the watercolor portion, I knew that I wanted to use it as a base for nail stamping, so I grabbed for a plate that feels like it's been in my collection forever to use one of my all time favorite stamping images. This rose image from the Born Pretty BP-L067 has gotten a LOT of use in my collection over the years and I obviously still think of it for this type of design. I initially planned on doing my stamping in black, but decided to lean into that base color and instead went with a rich, bold dark purple. I applied the image towards the edge of each nail, shifting my placement each time, to leave a bit of bare space on each nail to see through to that base polish.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed everything in with a generous layer of gel top coat and voila!

Unt Ready For Take Off Peel Off Base Coat*

* = PR Sample

I've gotta say, I'm actually super excited to play around more with different gel nail art techniques and try to push past this block I seem to have when it comes to not being good at things so that I can actually, maybe try to get good at them. I feel like gel nail art really has such an array of techniques to play with and there's a ton of room for creativity, so I'm hoping to find mine there!

Born Pretty was kind enough to send me over the three polishes I used for this watercolor technique and I have to say I'm really, really impressed with the quality of them and would definitely recommend! Also, I so have an affiliate code for Born Pretty, so feel free to use code TRYSH10 for 10% off your order.

Thanks for reading!