Harlequin Ducks in crème

Well, my alternating vampy and ethereal nail looks theme was going to get derailed at some point, and what finally did it was an amazing trip this week to the Jersey Shore to see Harlequin Ducks.

indoor, bright CF lighting

Harlequin Ducks are utterly striking creatures that look like they were done as a graphic designer's masters project.  There's patches of midnight navy, stormcloud blue, and cinnabar, flashed with snips of black and white, all in bold patterns across the whole bird's body.  

I've picked out a few of these dramatically graphic designs to make this look - the dot on the side of the head, the layered V of the back of the head, the black & white bar across the shoulder, and the big cinnabar patch on the side.  I picked all crème colors since the design is flashy enough without added sparkle.

outdoor, bright daylight

For the stormcloud blue on my index & middle finger, I used the perfectly apt Cirque Storm King.  The warm orange-leaning red is Bee's Knees The Ironworks.  The deep midnight blue is Shleee The Long Night.  Various basic shape images used in black & white came from Maniology M053, which is about perfect for this sort of "create your own design" type look. 

outdoor, bright daylight

It's been a while since I did a more complicated stamping look, and I was super pleased with how these turned out.  They look to my eyes both like the ducks that inspired them, and like nautical signal flags - since these are sea ducks that live in salt instead of fresh water, that's perfectly appropriate, too.

~Michelle