If Edgar Allen Poe indulged in nail art, this would have to be his signature style. Spooky, subtle and hints of decaying glamour… The perfect Halloween nail art idea if you’ve still got to work on the day.
To create this Haunted Forest nail art look, I first applied the base coat of Collection’s Work the Colour in the shade Going for Gold. I was highly excited at trying out this colour as I have long been looking for a gold nail polish that is a clean metallic and not full of glitter.
It took two coats, but as you can see on the nails of my glamour assistant (aka The Mother) it gives a really nice coverage.
Once the gold has dried, it’s time to start on the design.
I started by sketching a tree trunk onto the ring finger. Use a dotting tool, black nail art pen, or cocktail stick to draw a crooked thin line, from the tip of the nail up three quarters of the nail. Then starting from the bottom, slowly make it thicker, as you can see from my photo it is a good idea to try and make the line get thicker towards the tip to the nail like a tree trunk reaching down to the ground. Try to make it crooked, as this is Halloween nail art, and all sinister trees are crooked, are they not?
For the ground of the haunted forest, I’ve just painted a black line. Then swiftly moved on to the fun bit of adding the branches to the tree. I’ve tried to keep them quite thin, however in some areas they do get a bit thick.
After adding the ‘main branches’ I’ve just painted on shorter off shoots from them. All of the black polish that I’ve used is part of Rimmel’s 60 Seconds collection – which I think is perfect for nail art because of how quickly it dries.
On all other fingers (excluding the thumb) I have only put on one branch, using the same method. On the little finger I have created it in a more swirled shape, and on the other two fingers I have one going up and one going down. I was trying to give them the impression that they was slowly growing and creeping – smothering anything it their path. A bit like the thorns in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.
For the thumb, I felt the need to do something a bit different. So I drew a horizontal line (thicker at one end than at the other) to act as a branch, then added on a large circle. On top of this I added a smaller circle and triangle to act like a beak (can you tell what it is yet?)
After asked if it was a cat (and reverting back to a pre-school child for a moment) I added on two wing shapes… and voila, a raven appeared.
For a final touch I added some thorn like off shoots to the branch.
I hope you liked this tutorial, and that it made sense!