Charles Rennie Mackintosh-Inspired Nails

Hi everyone, happy Sunday! I'm not sure how many people reading this are familiar with the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He was a Scottish architect, designer, and artist associated with the Glasgow Style, sort of an offshoot of Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts Movement. I first learned about his work through the work of his wife, Margaret MacDonald, whom I wrote a paper on for a craft and design history course in my undergrad. They worked together on many projects, and she also was a talented artist and designer, but like many women, her work has been overshadowed by her more famous husband. 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh-inspired nails

I'm not going to go into much detail about his work, that's too much like school for me (I'm an Art History major, so yes, writing about art is work!). If you are interested in learning more, the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society website is probably one of the better online resources. 

For this design, I took elements from various images that I saw online and in print, but I knew that I wanted my centre design to be the Mackintosh Rose motif. The challenging part was trying to simplify the design so that it would work as nail art. A lot of Mackintosh designs are beautifully intricate, which is maybe not the best idea for late night nail art! ;)

Charles Rennie Mackintosh-inspired nails

Everything was done freehand using nail art brushes. I started with a base of Sally Hansen White On. But since I didn't want a plain white background, I used Essie Sand Tropez, thinned with a bit of thinner, and did a watercolour background. Then I painted in the colours: China Glaze Strawberry Fields for the rose, China Glaze Cha Cha Cha for the stem, and NOPI Stand By Your Manny and Essie She's Picture Perfect for the squares on my index and pinky fingers. All the black lines were done with Stripe Rite polish in black. 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh-inspired nails

Overall I really like this design, but more so in real life than in the photographs. The camera magnifies every imperfection, and also has a bit of a distorting effect. But I had this idea for a few weeks and kept putting it off, so I'm glad that I finally got around to it! What do you think? Does it work as nail art?  

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the rest of your weekend! :)