Mini Masterpiece 2016 Contest Winners: The Cubist and the Cutest

It’s a tie! Congratulations to this year’s Mini Masterpiece Contest co-winners. Ashley Loveridge charmed the judges with her “Green Turaco,” while Lee Antolini impressed all with her spot-on “Seated Woman.” You’re sure to enjoy the tremendous talent on display in all the entries.

Meet Ashley Loveridge
By the time Ashley Loveridge got to painting her third entry for this year’s contest — the one that won — she was a little burned out. “The first two took me a few hours, so by the time I got to the last one, I kind of rushed through it,” says Loveridge, a nail tech at Beauty Creations Salon and Spa in Lords Valley, Pa. It took her just half an hour to hand-paint her mini masterpiece on a tip that had been polished white. “One trick I discovered was using my fingertip to blend the paint for the watercolor effect,” she says. “The hardest part was trying to make the watercolor spots in the background.”

Loveridge, who has been doing nails for almost 13 years, has no formal art training but took just about every art class offered in high school. “I practiced nail art every chance I got when I first started doing nails,” she says. “But actually it was entering this contest every year for the past few years that helped me realize my potential and learn what I can create.”


Meet Lee Antolini
Nail art is something nail tech Lee Antolini mostly does for herself as a way of expressing her creativity; her specialty, she says, is sculpted nails. Currently a freelance nail and hair stylist based in Somers Point, N.J., Antolini has been a tech for less than two years, having gotten her start as a nail specialist at the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa in Atlantic City, N.J.
Her reasons for selecting this particular Picasso painting were simple: “I love this painting and I thought it was within my artistic abilities,” she says. Antolini estimates it took her three to four hours to complete the nail tip, using acrylic paint with a small detail brush. “The trick was to paint by layers, light colors first, then dark colors. The most challenging part was painting on the contour of the curve of the tip,” she notes.