ART AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

You can admire art not only in a museum or an art exhibition. Nail art is decorating nails with paintings, spangles, laces, sequins and other materials. It turns out the intricate patterns, stars, fabulous flowers, birds and many other pictures can be drawn on the nails. And it can be done only by a real professional.

Nail art is a called a top class craft in manicure. This new art of nail decoration is based on the use of various ornaments and pictures on the nails. Art paintings of nail plates are a new trend in the art of decorative manicure. Nail art is indebted for its emergence to so-called acrylic period in cosmetology. New technologies that make it possible to enhance and restore nails opened a wide scope for the imagination of manicure masters and designers working in this area.

This unique art was presented at the Nail & Art Jewellery exhibition of the master of nail art, Ulviyya Musayeva, at the Baku Creative Centre. Both classic examples of nail art and modern manicure made with the use of new technologies were shown here. Manicure masterpieces were presented in installations, photographs, videos and books. For clearer visual perception, every work of the nail artist was complemented with a photograph by Elliya Uruceva. The faces of the models were decorated with fancy magic face-art made by Ulviyya Musayeva.

According to Ulviyya, she loves the profession very much and constantly works on herself. Ulviyya is an economist by education, but the tedious world of numbers, calculations, and prices did not particularly attract her. The girl liked creativity, art and imagination. To start with, she decided to paint her own jewellery - earrings and a necklace of semiprecious stones. It turned out incredibly beautiful, creative and stylish. Ulviyya then moved to the nails and repeated the same picture in manicure. That's how whole artistic compositions performed on artificial nails and interfacing with drawings of jewellery appeared. The girl decided to create several collections of this kind and began working on special mock-up nails - with ornaments made of natural semiprecious stones, wood and plastic.

Thus a fantastic exhibition was born, which Ulviyya presented to Baku women of fashion. The artist came up with her own story for each work - "Dragon in love with a girl", "Eye of Tears", "Mask of Fire" and others.

Ulviyya designed the exhibition with Elliya Uruceva - a photographer and photo editor of the project. Sponsorship and creative support were provided by the company Aneksi Design and its owner and talented artist Farida Suleymanova. Some compositions at the exhibition could be purchased for a symbolic price, and the proceeds were sent to an orphanage.

Interestingly, the first "keepers of secrets and masters of the nails" were Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, who were members of a pharaoh's entourage in ancient Egypt. Cleopatra could not help decorating her fingernails either. She painted them with henna.

Today, people do not just paint their nails in one colour - they draw on them, and to create the design, they use not only paint, but also a variety of ornaments. Nail art involves decorating nails with different techniques and methods. For example, there is aquarium design. It is called that for the reason that the ingrained elements of design are covered with transparent and thick gel, giving the impression of a picture behind the glass. It is made, as a rule, on artificial nails with all possible elements of decoration. This may be sequins, dry buds, foil, coloured threads and little plastic figures. In this case, the nail remains completely smooth, and the pattern keeps for a very, very long time. If you get tired of watching the "aquarium" on your fingers, you can safely cover your nails with your favourite varnish and later, wipe it off and go back to the original version. The drawing will not suffer from your manipulations.

In salons, nail art is done either manually with thin brushes and pointed sticks, or special paint for nail is sprayed with an airbrush and a stencil. Special powder (e.g. Nail Creative Design) and acrylic are also used. To get the right colour, blush and colour shadows are added to the powder. From the top, nail art is fixed with special glue (seal) or transparent top cover.

Another option for decorating in the spirit of nail art is three-dimensional design. With the help of coloured acrylic powders and gels, various figures are moulded on the nails. It could be flowers, butterflies, and even fairy tales. Three-dimensional design looks very original, but has its drawbacks. It is not very convenient for doing any work. So, if you want roses or dahlias to blossom on your nails, reserve this desire for the nearest holiday. Then, sitting at the banquet table, you are sure to attract the attention of men and become an object of envy for all women.

In its classic performance, nail art is decorative painting of nail plates with acrylic paints and varnishes with various brushes, sticks and needles. Painting is done both on grown and natural nails. As for patterns, it's just the master's and your own fantasy. Generally, many different tools and parts are used to decorate nails. So, nails can be painted not only with special colours, but with quite ordinary gel pens and even markers. The most important thing is not to forget to fix the result with transparent varnish. In addition to drawing tools, there is a huge number of jewels and accessories for decoration, the use of which may give the nails a truly stunning look. No matter how strange and unusual this seems, even laces and pieces of beautiful fabrics are glued to the nails. Coloured threads, sequins, shiny dust, beads and spangles are also often used. Special varnishes, called pythons, look very nice on the nails. They create a unique effect of an aged canvas.

The particularity of these varnishes is that when applied to the nail, they give typical cracks. It looks particularly impressive when the python varnish is applied on top of another bright varnish - this is the layer that will be seen through the cracks. Strong and well-groomed nails, which are not subject to breakage and separation, are often decorated with piercings. We are not saying that using your hands with a ring in the nail is comfortable, but it looks very attractive and unusual. One of the hottest trends in nail art today is to repeat the picture of the fabric of the dress or jewellery on your nails. Professionals take into account that a beautiful woman often changes her clothes, and therefore, offer a solution: Nail art design made of several colours that harmonize with things from the wardrobe. This manicure will look natural and original, emphasizing the unity and perfection of the image.