Van Gogh’s Almond Blossom is one of my favorites of his works. As much of an impressionist fan as I am, I had never actually seen this particular work until I saw it in person at the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands. Although it has Van Gogh’s distinctive style, including intense swirling brush strokes and plenty of paint, it is also oddly calm and organically beautiful. This particular piece was a gift for Van Gogh’s nephew, Vincent Willem. If you want to learn more about the history of the almond blossom motif, I recommend the Van Gogh Museum Website.
Using this work from the Van Gogh Museum as inspiration, I had a ton of fun crafting this bright, colorful Van Gogh nail look. The look began with Color Club’s nail polish in “Over the Moon” as a base. This holographic blue was the perfect color for the almond blossoms backdrop and added a lot of dimension with it’s rainbow holographic properties.
I then went on to paint on the almond blossoms by using a fine paint brush and brown and green polish for the branches. I painted the branches in brown first and then went over them with a green color and swirling brush strokes while the brown was mostly but not fully dry. All of the colors and tools I used are pictured below.
After completing the branches, I used a dotting tool and fine brush for the white and yellow blossoms. I first used a dotting tool to make the initial white blossom dots and then used the built in fine brush on the Kiss white nail polish to add petals to make the dots look more floral. I used the smaller side of the dotting tool to make the yellow accent dots for the flower centers.
Overall I’m super happy with how this look turned out and it was a huge hit at the Van Gogh Live exhibit! Nail art pro-tip: instead of using a fine brush dipped in acetone to clean up some of the messy edges (areas where polish has extended to the skin instead of the nail), I recommend the following technique. Paint your nails the night before you want them done, let them dry fully over night. The next day wash your hand and gently pick at/peel at the polish that is on the skin. The polish that is on the nail will be set and won’t move around but the polish on the nail will fall off with a few hand washes. This is my lazy woman’s cleanup technique for perfect nail edges. The photo above was taken before cleanup. The photo below was taken after using my next day hand washing and gentle picking off technique.
Millennial's Delight 