February Polish Days: Mountains & Gradient Sunset Nails

Hiya everyone! Today is the next edition of Polish Days! The theme for February is "inspired by nature"--full prompt is as follows:

I don’t know about you, but with the snow we’re having in Norwich at the moment, I feel a little like mother nature is making all the rules. I love snow, but I’m not too keen when it stands a good chance of stopping me getting to a conference I’ve wanted to go to for three years running. So, whether you’re sweating your bollocks off in the Southern Hemisphere, getting snowed in or just willing spring to return, get inspired by nature for Februarys Polish Days.

One thing I am quite fond of, be it on nails or on canvas, is a gradient-sky look with a stark silhouetted shape in front of it. I've done paintings of this sort before, but not too many manicures. So, partially taking inspiration from this image for the colours, I created this:

Sunset, mountains, and birds. Ahhh... relaxing.

The gradient background was done with three colours: Orly Snowcone (cool sky blue), Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow (the yellow, obviously, and also the base colour I sponged this over), and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed (orange).

I did the mountains and birds with a small brush and some black acrylic paint, then topped it off with two coats of Cult Nails Wicked Fast. (I didn't notice it until I took these photos, but the topcoat smeared the black a bit on my middle and small nails.) :(

Smeary or not, I still really like this one! A few times today I gazed at it and could almost smell fresh mountain air... imagined sitting on a soft blanket atop freshly-mowed grass as the sun goes down, listening to the birds and drinking a nice cold one.

One more pic, because, sunset nails in the sunset light. Oooh, soooo meta.

Thanks for stopping by! Check out the rest of the Polish Days nature-inspired manis below! xoxo