#33DC - Day 21 - Europe (Black Sand Beach, Vík í Mýrdal, Iceland)

 Hiya guys!  I'm back for Day 21 of the #33DC and the prompt for today is Europe.  I was unsure on what I wanted to do for this prompt for ages, but once I got this idea in my head I was determined to see it through.

Photo credit: Alexandre Deschaume

 This is a photo of the stunning black sand beach Vík í Mýrdal, Iceland in a thick fog.  I came across this photo here on photo.net, and was just blown away by it.  I was pretty nervous about trying to recreate this, but I had a few back-up ideas in case it was a miserable fail so no pressure.

I had an idea I could use a couple of fan brushes to get the base in a sort of jagged gradient, and I actually took pictures of the base too.  I was just making this up as I went along, so I took pictures before adding the next step, as I had no idea whether I would just ruin in completely by adding too much : )

I actually liked it like this, and may have to try this again with other colours at some point.  I did take a striper brush and add a few more dramatic lines to emphasise the effect.
Then I decided I could build some 3D pebbles out of my black textured polish with a dotting tool.  I think I did about 3 or 4 layers in the end.  Took quite a while to dry though : /

That's how it looked afterwards.  Then I got my white polish, and with the skinniest brush I could find, I outlined around the base of pebbles.  This was probably the hardest bit of the whole mani, I did have to go back in with 1 more layer of black on the pebbles, but finally I had this:

Unfortunately, I don't own a really pale blue cream so I just had to go monochrome instead, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out anyway.  A bit weird, yes, but very interesting, especially in real life.  They really did look like little pebbles!
   

 What do you guys think of this, just a bit weird, or pure genius?: p   Want to go have another look at that photo? I know I do, I find it mesmerising!  Don't forget to check out the other amazing ladies down at the bottom.