This miniature blog post is the first in my CAS series called Mini Blogs. In this little series, I will write some small blogs about CAS-related activities that I have completed, focusing mainly on only one learning outcome. The other learning outcomes related to each blog post will be briefly talked about at the end, with a short sentence about how that learning outcome was addressed with each activity.

For the past few weeks/months, I have been attempting to get better at my nail painting skills. Personally, I consider makeup and nail polish to be a form of artwork, (and one that I am not very good at; for that matter). Considering this, I decided to try to develop my skills a little bit more, and try to get better at painting my nails. I started really simple, and then tried to do more complicated designs.

Main Learning Outcome #2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process A new challenge may be an unfamiliar experience or an extension of an existing one. The newly acquired or developed skills may be shown through experiences that the student has not previously undertaken or through increased expertise in an established area.

In this time of nail painting, there have been many challenges undertaken. For starters, I am completely inexperienced and have no practice painting my own nails. This made it really challenging for me to try to get my nails to look the way I had imagined in my head. Also, nail painting can be categorized as a challenge, as it is an unfamiliar experience. I am in the process of gaining better nail-painting talent and skills. I have gained (through many, many trial and error periods of time, and re-attempts at painting), increased expertise at nail painting. I am beginning to feel more confident painting my right hand’s nails, with my non-dominant left hand. I also feel very proud of my progress so far, as I started really simple with basic nail painting designs, and then I moved forwards to some much more complicated designs. My very first attempt at painting my own nails (in about 1 year at least), was this white colour. I found this challenging as white is easy to make mistakes, and every crinkle in the nail polish is smooth. Then, I took a clear chunky glitter colour, and painted it on top for a unique effect. This all took many tried and re-painting to get just the way I wanted it to be. This was the result (which I was relatively happy with).

Then, over the next 3 weeks, I tried out some other fun colours too! I did a pale blue with some small glitter sparkles on top, I did pink and silver nail polish, with a french tip (which was extremely fiddly and tricky to get right), and I also did black nails with purple sparkles.

 

Then, I got more confident with my nail art, and I began trying to do more fun, complicated designs for special holidays such as Halloween and Christmas. These took a significantly longer amount of time to do, and constant re-attempts, but I kept at it, and I was thrilled with how festive they both turned out!

 

Other Learning Outcomes (Shortened):

LO1 Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth Students are able to see themselves as individuals with various abilities and skills, of which some are more developed than others. – At the very beginning of my nail polish “journey”,  I definitely found this form of art as a personal area for growth, as my past attempts had been very unsettling and unsuccessful. I recognized that my nail polish painting “skills” were lacking and that my skill was not as developed yet.

LO4 Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences Students demonstrate regular involvement and active engagement in CAS. – I did paint my nails for fun, and also to try to improve them for at least 6 weeks in a row. This was perseverance in my mini-personal goal to become better at nail painting. I also did this weekly, so it was regular involvement and engagement in the “creativity” section of CAS.