12 Easy Nail Art Ideas For Beginners. – The Nail Tech Diaries (2024)

Nail art can be quite challenging and might be very daunting for some nail technicians, especially when you’re just starting with your nail career. In the past year, I have dabbled in multiple nail art mediums, and have grown my knowledge extensively on the topic, as well as my nail art skills.
In this post, I will list 12 different types of hand-drawn nail art, that I have done myself. I will explain techniques on how I achieved it, and how to get better at doing nail art yourself.

Nothing is quite as beautiful as a classic French set. When you have perfected your smile-line technique, the possibilities are endless. I did these nails on a client for springtime. White French with a burst of colour here and there. I hand drew the sun using gel polish and astriping brush. The method I used was to create a thin swirl and stripes for the sunbeams. I then went over it with another layer of the colour, once it was cured, to make it more opaque. Seeing that gel polish tends to run, I would suggest curing the design after each step. If you draw too slowly the lines might run into each other and then you’ll have to start over.

This set, in particular, stood out to me. I just love neon pink and black. This nail art is quite simple to achieve. Once the nails have been filed, choose your colours. I used dark blue and neon pink gel polish as well as white liner gel and striping brushes. The lines that I made with gel polish needed two coats for maximum opacity. Draw the lines underneath first (in this case the blue lines) cure them and add another layer. Repeat this step until you are happy with the darkness of the lines. Once finished, draw the pink lines and follow the same steps as before. Add white dots for extra detail.

This technique is quite straightforward. All you’ll need is a dotting tool and gel polish of your choice. Simply put a small amount of gel polish onto the dotting tooland add five small dots for each flower. Don’t put the dots too close together, seeing that if they touch, they’ll run into each other.

I loved doing these flowers so much. I found that doing the outlines of the flowers with black liner gel and a smallstriping brushworked best. You can also draw it with a pencil first if you want. After curing the outlines add the base colour of the flower. Then perfect the outlines after you cured the base colour. For added detail add small black stripes reaching from the middle of the flowers to the base of each petal. Top it all off with arhinestonein the middle.

Leopard print is one of my favourite trending nail art to do. It’s quite simple really. Using adotting tool, paint an assortment of dots where you want the spots to be. Note to not paint the dots completely round. Rather use oval-like shapes. Cure the spots and then take whatever colour you want to use for the outlines of the dots and draw smiley-type shapes on either side of the spots using a smallstriping art brush.

I am personally very proud of this design. I initially thought it might be a lot harder than it was. But seeing that it was quite simple, I included it in this post. To make the flowers I simply used white liner gel and made different shapes and dots that resembled flowers usingdotting toolsandstriping art brushes. It’s very easy and abstract so don’t overthink it. Note to still apply the gel in thin layers, otherwise, the designs will simply peel off of the nails.

This design was achieved more easily by positioning myself in such a way, so that the back of my hand faced my client, and drawing the lines from the opposite side first, using the longeststriping brush. This helps keep my hand steady and allows me to draw flush lines. Round off the design with somerhinestonesandbeads, to give it a “jewellery” feel.

Marbling is such a versatile field, and you can create different effects through multiple techniques. I did this design on my nails by using the double-dip method. This means I created a thin layer of the marble colours by picking up one bead, (say clear) and then dipping that bead into the next colour (like pink), I mixed and swirled the colours to give this beautiful effect. After this, I added some glitter here and there and capped the whole design with clear acrylic. To top it all I added some goldtransfer foil.

This design focuses on line art. Using the method I mentioned before, and positioning your hand to face your client, you will be able to draw straight lines without any effort. Create different patterns by drawing horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines using the longest striping brush for the best result. Add a matte topcoat and of course, some rhinestones.

This remains one of my favourite sets. Start with a white background and add differently coloured dots onto the nail, by using adotting tool. Make sure that the dots vary in sizes and space them out randomly so that it doesn’t look too much like a pattern. For the stripes, I made use of a light purple background as well as a longstriping brush, and simply painted dark purple and white stripes onto the nail.

I made use of two different mediums. Spider gel and liner gel. Use spider gel to create easy lines across the nail. After its cured, come in with the liner gel and add dots here and thereby making use of adotting tool. A super-easy way to draw hearts is to add two dots close together and to connect them with an upside-down triangle using aliner brush. Fill in the triangle and perfect the shape to achieve an easy heart.

A seemingly hard design that is super easy to create. I simply added a “blob” of yellow, which I used for the base colour of the roses, onto the nail. They don’t have to be perfect. I then used purple to draw lines where I wanted the definition of the leaves to be. Don’t overthink this! Finally, I added some highlights using my white liner gel.

Nail art takes time and practice. These designs are a few examples to prove that anyone can do some form of hand-painted nail art. I find it’s easier to paint a design when you break it up into layers. Viewing it as different steps that you’ll have to take, and different colours you’ll use. Nail art takes a lot of practice and time so don’t give up.Nail practice standsandfull nail tipsare some tools you can use to practice if willing clients are low in demand.