Valentines day is under a week away, and if you're anything like me, you absolutely love all of the hearts that are surrounding you everywhere you go. I have also been seeing a trend of negative space nail art around lately, so I thought I would connect the best of both worlds! If you don't know what negative space design is, I'll drop a little bit of my graphic design knowledge on you. Negative space is when the space around the main object creates an interesting shape or design of the plain untouched space in the middle. So for this tutorial, I'll be creating a negative space heart on one of my fingers, where the centre of the heart will be completely clear of polish!
After all of that blabber, let's get started!
For this tutorial you will need:
- Your favourite base coat (I used OPI's 'Natural Nail Base Coat')
- Light purply/pink polish (I used 'Mod About You' by OPI)
- Nude nail polish (I used 'Coney Island Cotton Candy' by OPI)
- Whitish pink polish (I used 'Adore-a-ball' by Essie)
- Gold glitter nail striper (The one I used doesn't have a name but is by Kiss Nail Art)
- Your favourite top coat (I used Seche Vite's 'Dry Fast Top Coat')
- Circle Studs (I used some from Sally Hansen)
- Tweezers
- A dotting tool or tooth pick, and a small nail art brush (Both of mine are from my Bundle Monster 20pc nail brush set)
Step 1: On clean nails, paint on a layer of your Base Coat to ensure that your natural nails are protected.
Step 2: To form the negative space heart on your nail, start by placing two small dots on your nail with your dotting tool. These will be the base and the middle of your heart.
Step 3: Roughly draw out the shape of a heart with your nail art brush, using your two dots as guides to ensure the heart is even. Don't worry if the outline is a little messy, you can use your brush dipped in acetone to clean up the edges, and the edges will be covered with the gold glitter striper anyways.
Step 4: Fill in the outside space of the heart using your nail art brush. The polish will not look smooth as you're doing this due to you having to do such small strokes, but once top coat is applied it will appear completely smooth!
Step 5: While you are waiting for the polish on your heart to dry, paint your first coat of polish on your remaining nails. I did the same colour as the heart on my pinky, my nude colour on my ring finger, and my white on my middle finger. This mishmash of colours gives the manicure more visual interest without it being too over the top!
Step 6: Once the polish on your heart finger has dried, use your gold glitter striper to go around the edges of the heart. This allows you some leeway if the edges are not completely clean. It also makes the manicure a bit girlier and adds a little bit of bling.
Step 7: While the glitter your applied is drying, do your second coat of polish on your remaining fingers. While the polish is still dry, pick up some of the circle studs using your tweezers and place them on your nails however you'd like. I put mine on the bottom of my pink and ring finger, then created a polka-dot design on my middle finger.
Step 8: Once your polishes have dried, add your favourite top coat to seal in your beautiful new manicure! (Your heart will also be looking significantly less bumpy at this point.
And there you have it! A beautiful valentines manicure that will be perfect for any of your valentines day plans. It's really cute and is pretty on par with the current negative space trend for nail art!
If you're inspired by this tutorial, post a picture on Instagram using #prettiestpolish so I can see your lovely work! If you have any comments, suggestions for tutorials, or future blog posts you'd like to see, leave me a comment down below!
Have an amazing week, and may your nails be BEAUTIFUL!
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