I’ve been in a bit of a funk for the past few days, but I’ve finally gotten myself together enough to write this (brief) post. And, hey, it’s also been a while since I painted something with watercolor. And it’s been even longer–almost two years–since I painted my nails with white gel and re-used that lazy white base to play around.
Which is another way of saying, I’ve had this idea for painting this sea turtle nail art for a long time. I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot lately and…that makes me happy. I’m followin’ my dreams! 💪


Nail art products used
- Base Polish:
- Re-usable white gel base
- Stamping Polishes:
- Hit the Bottle’s “Slitherin’ Serpentine“ and Maniology’s “Winter’s Kiss“
- Watercolor “Look”:
- Watercolor paint
- Stamping Plates:
- Maniology “BM-S190” (large sea turtle) and “MXM007“ (kelp) + Winstonia “W-01” (pinkie kelp + thumb sea turtle)
Now that I have more shades of not-black dark stamping colors to use, I decided to use them with the watercolors. I even used a dark blue and and dark green….

But then I feel like I forgot how important contrast is and made my background a little too dark. The sea turtle is blending into the ocean! Which I’m sure is a comforting amount of camouflage for it, but doesn’t do as much for my design as I wanted. 😆

Previous watercolor nail art…
You can see on these three designs I went much lighter with the backgrounds, which really helped the main subject to pop more. Ah, well. More excuses to just paint more designs and get back to right.
Watercolor Cactus Phoenix in Flight (before top coat) It’s Raining Fish
A-Z Nail Art Challenge
Meanwhile we have the collage from the nail challenge and there’s so much prettiness here! @koaliaelnails even painted a tortoise shell design, which would not have even occurred to me but is brilliant! Check out the group tag. Also, the next subject is ‘U’ is for UFO, so I get to paint more alien nail art early in the year! 🚀

The last turtle nail art photos…
We end with a macro and our usual far away. I think the turtle stands out more at a distance than it does up close!


Until next time, friends! 👋
Amazing. I love how you did it too 😀
Thanks! I do love the watercolor look with nail art.