Pocket Galaxies

Thanks for your comment. I have been thinking about re-doing the pocket galaxy project with a detailed "how-to" with photographs. It's a bit tricky working with nail polish as a medium, but hopefully all my trial and error attempts would help others create their own without botching as many as I did initially.

If I don't have the right colors of nail polish, do you think this would work with acrylic paint?

I haven't tried it with acrylic paint, but have wondered if that will work also. You'll need some sort of clear/glitter polish, however, to produce the star backdrop. I paint a lot of Nebulas (I posted another one under my projects if you care to take a peek at that). I always water down the nail polishes on a piece of tin-foil using some polish extender/thinner (not polish remover). I use small art/detail brushes (like you use with acrylic paints). You have to think backwards on how the image will appear from the front side of the glass floral pebble since you are painting on the back side. Try painting in this order: 1) paint a thin coat of glitter nail polish over the entire back. 2) thin down some maroon, red or dark purple and dab a small circle in the middle of the pebble 3) paint around the rim of that small circle with varying other shades of red, pink, purple or whatever you have on hand to expand the size of the center circle of color, enlarging the size of the central circle as you add different rims of color. 4) After you have built a central circle of varying shades, thin down some various shades of blues, purples, plums. Use a larger acrylic paint brush and dab on the various shades to create the illusion of a night sky with variations of color. 5) After you have finished with the night sky, paint a solid coat of black or dark navy blue across the entire back of the floral pebble to protect the image -- finish off with a layer of clear.

Keep a glass of 100% Acetone (nail polish remover) on hand to keep your brushes clean as you work. Don't try painting with the brush that comes in the bottle. You don't have any control.

I'm about to have foot surgery and am going to be "down" for a few weeks. I was planning to paint some while I'm out of commission so keep watching my projects for a new tutorial on the pocket galaxies.

Oh .. and p.s. If I am painting an image that has a moon or a black hole (like the one featured in this post), I typically paint the moon or black hole first before I put on a coat of glitter nail polish. I use a hole punch on a strip of blue painter tape and then stick it on the floral pebble to guide me in painting a perfectly round moon or black hole. I wait about 1 minute before carefully peeling the tape off. If you wait until the polish is completely dry, you may have difficultly pulling the tape off without also pulling off part of the image. I hope this makes sense.