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BOOK CORNER

 Airbrushing for Nails by Elizabeth Anthony

Published by Milady

ISBN 156253270-7

UK Price  £17.50

This is one of the best nail airbrushing books I have seen.  It covers nothing else, starting from the parts of the different airbrushes on the market to ideas for designs and marketing your airbrushing service.  It has some really good tips which you wonder why you never thought of it when you read them, like using the chevron French manicure stencil as a template for making your own out of frisket film.  If you’ve ever used this stencil you know it doesn’t always lie flat on the nail to get a perfect edge to the white.  The frisket film gives a perfect crisp edge to the white.  So simple, yet so effective. 

There is a whole chapter to colour theory, making simple work of mixing and customising colours.   It shows you how to match airbrush colour to nail polish so you client can buy the polish for any touch ups at home. 

It shows various designs and gives you a list of what you need to re-create the design. If you use Aztek paints and stencils you will be able to re-create the designs exactly.  If not you can still improvise with the stencils and the colours you have.

PHOTOGRAPHS WITH OUT CAMERAS

If you know you are going to do a beautiful set of nails or nail art and need a good photo for a competition, poster, advert etc try contacting your local amateur photography group.  You may find someone willing to take photos for a very small charge instead of the huge amounts professional photographers charge.  They are normally quite creative and will come up with a lot of ideas for backgrounds, poses etc.  they may want to keep copies of the photos they take but it’s all publicity for you in the end.  

SHOW OFF SECTION!!!

 Those of you who subscribe to Nails magazine (the American one) may spot a small picture of my airbrushing (on my own nails) in the nail art section of the March issue.

You can also see a full page article with my work in the beauty section of ‘For The Bride’ (vol 2 issue 1)

Also picture and details in ‘Black Beauty and Hair’ in their April/ May edition Wedding special

If you have any work published and want to show off(!) call and let me know the publication and date and I will print the details.

QUICK TIP

 If, like me, you have stacks of horseshoe type sculpting forms that you never use here’s a new use for them.

 Turn them upside down and use them to over the cuticle area of the finger when airbrushing.  Stick the ends together under the nail.  This means that you only have to clean up a tiny area at the sides of the nail after your design is finished.  If you are doing a stencil design remove the forms once you have done your background colour(s).

 I can’t take any credit for this, either I read it somewhere or someone suggested it, I can’t remember.  But I tried it and it’s a blimmin’ good idea!  I’ve tried to illustrate here but you may have to use your imaginations a touch!

go to page 4 - Nail Art Gallery

go to front page - Introduction, Nail art

go to page 2 - Beauty shows - update, Do you do feet? Oh dear!