Add a cheerful sunflower to your manicure

If you love flowers, you’ve probably painted more than a few on your nails. Sunflowers look complicated, but they’re fairly easy to paint once you know the tricks. Adding this cheerful beauty to a light blue nail is an alluring way to show off this summer flower.

Painting an entire flower, stem and all, can be overwhelming, so use your cuticle area as a base. Layer yellow and orange to achieve dimension, then add a dab of dark brown paint. You’ll need two different brushes to achieve a large swath of color as well as the fine lines that form the petals. Watch the following video to see how it all comes together, then follow the instructions below to create your own flowers at home.

Materials
- Light blue gel paint (Canni #620)
- UV or LED lamp (Lumcrissy, not shown)
- Yellow gel paint (Mission Control, Solar)
- Short round brush
- Orange gel paint (Venalisa #1570)
- Brown gel paint (Mission Control, Clutch)
- Liner brush
- No-wipe gel top coat (Cheri)

Instructions
1. Apply two coats of light blue gel polish to the nails, curing them between coats with the UV or LED lamp.

2. Create a sunflower by applying yellow gel paint with the short round brush in the lower left corner of the nail. Cure the wet gel with the lamp.

3. Layer more yellow paint on the tips of the flower petals, then add orange gel paint below it to give the flower more depth. Cure the paint again with the lamp.

4. Apply brown gel paint to the lower left corner of the nail with the liner brush. Drag the liner brush through the wet paint and up to the tips of the flower to create individual petals. When the design is complete, cure the paint again.

5. Seal your artwork by applying a thin layer of no-wipe gel top coat, then cure the gel once more.