my oh maya

I came across Maya Hayuk's work one day wile aimlessly scrolling through Instagram...as we do...and was immediately in love with the colors, perfect symmetry of it all, and the drips--don't know if it was the juxtaposition of the dripping paint over the perfectly cut lines or that it was so perfectly imperfect in itself but I just love them. After spending some time creeping through all of Maya Hayuk's different commission and projects and obsessing over them for some time I decided I was inspired enough to try and replicate it on a smaller scale...my nails. 

http://mayahayuk.com/?page=murals&id=chem-trails-2013

L to R: Scoundrel, Royal Navy, Keks, Poole, Fiver, Jaded Jack, Cheers, Silly Billy, Fruit Machine, Primrose Hill Picnic 

I gathered up a handful of colors and set to work in the usual way--a coat of butter LONDON Horse P

ower Nail Fertilizer and a coat of Nail Foundation Flawless Basecoat. Next, I painted a coat of white lacquer using Cotton Buds so all the subsequent colors would show up nice and bright.

The actual process of painting the design is a bit difficult to systematically describe. I essentially picked my first color--say, the light purple, Scoundrel--and freehand painted either an X, a V, a  diagonal line, or nothing on the nail. I would then move on to another color and layer another one by the purple one, sometimes in the same shape, sometimes not. The more colors I added, the nail gradually filled up. I used Maya Hayuk's painting as a reference and I think the resulting effect was pretty similar. After I filled all the nails with the overlapping lines, I added some little drips on in select colors. I finished everything with one coat of SV Topcoat. 

Before adding the drips and finishing with the topcoat

I absolutely love how they turned out and apparently so did butter LONDON because they posted them on their Instagram a few days later!

 So what do you think of my mani and Maya Hayuk's work? Are you inspired?