Nail art for beginners 

DOTTING TOOL FUN

 
           In the beginning. It’s hard to do nail art for most people. You look for ideas on pinterest or instagram but everything looks so overwhelming.  But we all start somewhere and you need to learn to walk, before you can run! 

Today I’m going to share a few techniques and basic designs to get you pointed in the right direction. Once you are confident with these techniques, you can experiment with them and see what your imagination brings forward. 

You’re going to need a dotting tool for this, and a little bit of patience.  Don’t be disheartened if you don’t get it perfect straight away. Practice makes muscle memory.  And that is the most important part of nail art. 
Dotting tool art is probably one of the easiest techniques  you can use, and it’s very versatile too.  Even seasoned nail art pros use dots and dotting tools in their work.  When selecting a dotting tool,  keep in mind that the dots will be slightly bigger than the point, at the end of the tool.  I always pick a smaller tool than what I want my dots to be. 

Before you go in all guns blazing, practice simple rows of dots.  Notice how big the first dot is, compared to each dot afterwards. You should be able to get 6 or 7 dots out of one dip. 

 Hold your tool straight up and down when dipping it into the gel Polish. If you’re consistently dipping to the same depth, your dots will consistently be the same size. If you want a smaller dot than your first one, and you’re using your smallest dotting tool; make a few dots on something else, like your own fingernail, before going on to the actual design. If I want a dot the same size as the 6th dot in my practice, I’ll dot my own nail five times , and then go in to dot the clients nail. 

Whatever angle you hold your tool for your first touch down, keep that angle for subsequent dots, or else they wont get smaller as you dot along. 

You can make subsequent dots the same size as the first, by rotating your tool between dots. You should be able to get 2 or 3 dots the same size with one dip by doing this. Alternatively you can make them the same size, by ever so slightly moving your tool in a circular motion once you place it on the nail. A fraction of a hairs movement will make your dot bigger. This works well for doing flowers, so you don’t need to redip for every petal. 

OK, so now yore ready to make a flower! 5 petaled flowers (5 dots) is a great look. Try to place them in a star pattern with one at the top, two on the sides and two on the bottom. Keep your dots far enough apart so they don’t touch eachother but not so far apart that they have to use a telephone to talk to each other. You can place a single dot for the middle of the flower first, and work around it, or you can do the middle dot last. Whatever works best for you. 

A single dotty flower on its own is going to look pretty lost, so use your graduated dotting technique you first practiced, to contour the shape of the nails or add different size flowers as well and fill up some of the negative space. 

Another technique you can use a dotting tool for is the dragged out dot. To practice this, you’re going to want to do a line of graduated dots. Once they are all layed there, clean your tool and place it back on the dot before dragging it out. Do that to each dot so you can see the difference between how big the dot is and how far it’ll drag. 

When you get the hang of dragging the dots, you can make a dotty flower, and drag them towards the center to make them look like actual petals.

OK, so now you know how to drag dots, you can make a love heart!  Make two equal dots, side by side and one tiny dot at the bottom.  Then drag each dot down into the bottom point of a heart. Clean your tool and drag any bits into place to even it up. 

And finally, my last dotting tip is to experiment with dragging the dots in different directions, you can get some elegant swirly patterns this way 🙂 

Have a play around with these techniques and tag me in your examples on your social media #bigceelittlecee so I can be nosy! 

Check out my YouTube channel for more tips and tricks! 

Love Courtney 

Xo