#NowTrending: Ferrari nails by Amy Clarke

By Callie Iley | 13 April 2021 | Feature, Tech Talk

Scratch chats to Amy Clarke Nail Artist about her nail journey and how she created this incredible Ferrari themed nail art design…

I’ve always been creative and had hit a point in my life where I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, until I started face painting for children’s birthday parties. This progressed into learning about skincare and make-up. The more I did, the more I wanted to to learn and do.

I attained qualifications in beauty, L&P acrylic nails and various other accredited courses based around nail art and 3D acrylic design. That’s when I knew the path I wanted to take – continuing to challenge myself and pushing my abilities. I wanted to learn everything there is to know about nails – maintaining the integrity of the nail, nail health, chemical reactions, health & safety and structure – I love it all.

I am now a qualified educator for Sunshine Hair and Beauty Training Academy and to be able to teach all that information to students who have a thirst for knowledge and getting to to watch them grow is nothing short of amazing. I remember using my mum and dad’s kitchen table as my work space, and began building my clientele from there, where I would work all hours. Being able to look back and see how far you’ve come, the silent struggles to get here, the tears and self doubt (we all feel it!), to being 99% confident in my own work is so worth it… Always leaving room for improvement.

My nail style is typically ‘outside the box’ – turning nothing into something. If I could personalise every set I do, I would. No matter what type of nail art I’m doing, CJP Nail Systems is my brand of choice. The products are amazing and the customer service is second to none. This is closely followed by Naio Nails which offers amazing products and fantastic customer service.

When creating these Ferrari themed nail designs, I researched various types of Ferrari racing cars to get a feel for the shape of nail I wanted to create. After settling on the Ferrari F1 2000 that Michael Schumacher won the Formula One World Championship with, I scaled it on my phone to a 1:18 to fit the surface i needed it to blend with. I then used used my nail art planner from Emoki Nails and measured out the length and width that I was sculpting, versus the width of my model’s nail, and sketched out the first version of my Ferrari to the scale I would be sculpting.

Once I was happy with how it looked on paper, I bought some miniature Hot Wheels toy cars and took them apart to get the wheels. I went ahead and sculpted a thin clear base, elongating the side walls down slightly more toward the free edge so that I could pinch to create a hold for the wheels to go underneath, as a car would naturally be. The free edge has a slight curve downwards to mimic the nose of the original F1.

After briefly refining my shape, I added my Ferrari red using CJP coloured acrylic powder in the shade Candy Apple and encapsulated this in a thin layer of CJP Core Powder in Crystal Glass. I then measured the width of the wheels from the Hot Wheels car, and measured it against the free edge to know whether I needed to shorten the wheels and clip the axel, which I did by a couple of millimetres. I marked a dot on the elongated side walls where I wanted my wheels to be. I drilled a hole following the marks I made, and thankfully, it measured up first time.

When I was happy with my wheels, I then made my acrylic helmet and both spoilers using the same red previously mentioned and sculpted the remainder of the bodywork. The flags were made with Bright White Core Powder from CJP also. Everything was measured to be in proportion and balance with the rest of the nail, the fiddly bits were all attached at the end. All the artwork is freehand and painted in stages, including the spoilers, helmet and flags. They were attached with Blu-Tac temporarily so I could see it all together. All products for this set are by CJP Nail Systems.

Once I was happy with how everything looked together, I secured all of the 3D bits into place and made my way to my local Ferrari showroom, owned by Charles Hurst Ferrari Belfast, where I was given free rein to take as many photographs and poses as my heart desired… It was incredible! The whole team at Charles Hurst Ferrari Belfast could not have been more helpful and accommodating, it was an experience I’ll never forget.

I love the creativity I see regularly in the nail industry, the skills that nail techs have are insane. I love working with like minded individuals and I’m very fortunate to have made some fantastic, lifelong friends – both client and fellow nail artists.

The highlight of my career so far is definitely winning the Advanced Category of CJPs Time To Shine competition and earning my first trophy. It’s a big achievement for me after a rubbish year.

In the future, I would love to compete more and continue pushing myself to see what I can create. I will definitely be attaining further qualifications, because you can never know too much. I have a few ideas for the future, but I’m thinking it might be hard to top the Ferrari set. I’d love to travel and train with some amazing nail artists and just keep learning and striving to be the best version of myself that I can be. Who knows, maybe one day my dreams of opening my own training academy will come true!