The Digit-al Dozen Does Art day 1 - art deco inspired

Hey everyone, happy Monday... kinda? I'm fighting off a cough/cold thing and not feeling so well today so this won't be a super wordy post but I'm still here so yay! It's the second week of the month which means time for another Digit-al Dozen theme week. This week's theme is art, which I love because it's super broad and open to interpretation. For my first mani I went with a colorful art deco inspired design.

When I originally started these nails I wanted to do a design inspired by the Chrysler Building, the quintessential example of the art deco movement's influence on architecture. I did the pattern on my thumbnail and hated it so I took it off and decided to go for a design that was more just inspired by the general art deco movement rather than a specific part of it.

I Googled "art deco design" to get some semblance of an idea of what I was looking for but the pattern I decided on isn't based on anything specific.

I freehanded all the designs with my mid-length striper brush. The colors I used are Zoya Shelby (pink), China Glaze Kinetic Candy (light blue), China Glaze Def Defying (green), China Glaze Hanging in the Balance (dark blue), and China Glaze Creative Fantasy (purple). I love all of these colors together really hard.

I did a simpler variation of this design first but wasn't happy with how empty it looked so I sort of just kept adding lines here and there until it more closely approximated what I was going for. I'm still not super thrilled with this mani for some reason. It is growing on me, though, and I like it a lot more now than when I first finished it. It also photographed nicely, which is a plus!

I dunno... even though I love these colors and this is a design that should have been right up my alley I just couldn't fall in love with it. I think it might be that it's too much like a lot of the stuff I was doing a few months ago and it just seems too simplistic to me, or that my lines aren't perfect, or maybe I'm just grouchy because I'm tired and I don't feel well, haha! Looking at these pictures now I do like it a lot more than I did when I finished it last night and I'm definitely in lurrrve with the color combo. I love the art deco style, too, and I think I'm going to try it again for tomorrow's nails but use striping tape this time so I won't shed a tear over each imperfection in my line work.

What do you guys think of this mani? Don't forget to check out the other ladies' cool art-inspired nails for today!