Experimenting with Crackle

When I first got my China Glaze crackles, I'd heard that changing the direction of your strokes, will change the crackle effect.  This stands to reason, of course, but I tried it once and it was a big fat fail, so I gave up.  Then, I happened to receive a half of the collection from China Glaze to review about 2 weeks ago.  They were sitting on my desk and I was bored, so I figured I'd give it another chance.  I think this time, I was much more successful.  :)

This is China Glaze Cracked Concrete over Zoya Charisma.  I love this combo.  From L-R:

1. Middle finger - I created this look using horizontal stripes rather than vertical.  I think this is probably my favorite of the three.

2. Ring Finger - This was created by using half vertical strokes and half horizontal stripes.  The "dividing line" is diagonally down the nail.

3. Pinkie Finger - This started out being more of a cross-hatch pattern, but morphed into a truly random patter when I started filling in the gaps.

Basically, the sky is the limit when it comes to creating designs with these thicker crackles (i.e. OPI, ChG)  There's just a few ground rules you need to know...
- be quick
- have just the right amount of your brush.  Too much will glob and too little will pull.
- just one coat.  you can always apply another coat of crackle over the top of the one you are currently doing, for a cool layered effect, but don't try to do multiple coats of the same color at the same time.  It won't crack and it will just look really thick and glumpy.

UPDATE - I wanted to add this pic.  Per Kimberly's suggestion, I tried a swirl pattern.  Starting with a dot of color in the middle and working my way around it in half-circles.  Here's what I came up with...

Sorry for the quick and dirty pic, but I think this is the best one yet.  Thank you, Kimberly, for the idea.  :)


ChG Cracked Concrete as well as 2 others were sent to me for review.  I also purchased the entire set of crackles prior to receiving my review samples.  Charisma was purchased by me.