The Planets: Earth

I hope you are still enjoying this series...especially since we aren't yet halfway through. Today's offering is Earth, our own little blue marble. So far, this might be my favorite. It turned out absolutely perfect.

I'm not going to wax nerdy about this one. I think we all know a wee bit about our home base. Besides, trying to google for links about "Earth" ends up with way too many pictures of landscapes and flowers...and that is not what I am going for here. I want the planet, without artistic angles and flowers.

NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

Colors Used (in order of use!):

Sally Hansen Insta Dri Blue-Away

Sally Hansen Insta Dri Brisk Blue

OPI Jade is the New Black

Wet'n'Wild SaGreena the Teenage Witch

OPI Happy Anniversary!

Octopus Party Ink or Swim

Octopus Party Baptism

Wow. This is the most I've used in quite a while. But I wanted to capture the abstract quality that pictures of home have when taken from orbit. To be fair, most are artist representations, or collages of satellite pictures...but you get the idea. I used my patented cling film method with the first four colors to suggest oceans and continents. Then I took the shimmery white to give a little dimension, since I knew I was going to layer Ink or Swim over everything, and I didn't want it to look too flat. Then I slathered on some top coat and paused.

I was afraid of ruining everything with the next step.

I poured a puddle of my base coat and Baptism near each other on a slip of foil I took a striping brush and wiped through both puddles. I wanted an uneven amount of pigmented polish on there. Then I started slapping the "clouds" on there, hoping for the best. Thankfully, it turned out better than expected. I was absolutely thrilled with the final outcome. I actually like the "not bad" version as well, but it looks more like a pond than a planet.

my "not bad" version of earth

Are you enjoying the planets so far? Which one are you looking forward to the most? Prior to this, I was stoked for Jupiter...but I don't know if I can top this one. So rarely do things work out exactly as planned.

update: come see me at bedlambeauty.com