Houndstooth Nail Art Tutorial

Hi everyone! Just thought I would do this tutorial before the green nails challenge. Today I'll show you step by step on how to achieve a (freehand) houndstooth design. The design isn't very hard, I broke it down to a few levels and is a lot easier than it looks!

First, this is the brush i'll be using. It's quite fine, which is perfect for the detailing in this. If you don't have anything as thin as this, that's okay, just don't load your brush with too much polish/acrylic paint. I never load my brush with paint unless i'm trying to cover a large surface or using light colours (white, yellow etc).

Now for the tutorial, yay!

Paint your nails a bright yellow - or any other bright colour, up to you really. Just make sure it isn't too dark. If you want to use dark, consider using white acrylic/polish instead for the design. I've used 3 coats of BYS Yellow(Matte).

Next, draw some squares with black acrylic paint like shown in the pic. Draw as many as you'd like, I just did halfway cause it might've taken a bit of time to do the whole nail. If you aren't confident with drawing squares, you can tape the squares (apply tape to the clear space like in the pic in a plaid-like arrangement and paint over & peel. Tape takes too long for me and my nails are curved, so i'd get crooked lines anyway.

Now draw little slanted triangles. I find it easier to extend the line on the side of the square up a bit and then drawing a diagonal to meet up with it.

Do the same as the previous step, but now adjacent to the square.

Start drawing diagonal lines on the rows with squares. We will draw the diagonals in the clear row next.

Draw diagonal lines connecting the squares from top to bottom. You can draw one long diagonal line across the whole nail, but in my reference pic, they didn't exactly align, which is why I have done them as separate steps. If it's easier for you, then feel free to do so!

Finally, add a topcoat to seal the design and you're done!

I hope this was easy to follow and that you enjoyed it! If you try this, leave me a link! I'll be adding this to the tutorial tab for easier access :)

//Linda