Astronaut / Space Nails

This was my submission for Sally Hansen's 'I Heart Nail Art' contest for May 2013 (which I didn't win, dang it!). That month's theme had been 'street art'.

I was inspired by the street artist Bansky when I did this. Previous to starting this mani, I had looked up 'street art' to get a better idea of the art style, and fell in love with his style and the humor in his art pieces.

This mani doesn't outwardly come off as 'humorous', but looking at it made me smile :) My boyfriend thought that it was one of my best designs! That made me smile even wider.

'Dead Astronaut' May 2013 

How I did this:

To start, I applied a light gray polish as a base, then layered a thin coat of white crackle polish.

With a dotting tool, I applied black in a cloud shape across all the nails. Then I created a galaxy/nebula design over the black by sponging on white, bright pink, yellow and dark blue around it's border. Then I applied a coat of glitter polish for 'stars'.

Next, I blocked out the astronaut in white. I went around the edges of this with black, then added in his head. I decided to add a little United State flag on his sleeve and used some black crackle for more feathery strokes. To get the fine lines around his hand and fingers, I used my secret detail weapon: a gel pen!

The profile of the girl was thrown on at the very end to make it more 'street art-like'. The mole above her lip is an homage to me, since I have one in that same spot on my face. Silly details, I know ;)

Because of the angle, you can barely see his legs and feet -- it's hard posing for these pictures!!

I was really proud of this; I would thrust my hands into the faces of everyone that looked even slightly interested in my hands, haha!

I wish I had taken more pictures of this!!