ESTEVAN — Jacqueline McClement’s skill with nail art has garnered her some international recognition.
McClement, who owns the Lux Nail Art Studio Inc. in Estevan, recently captured the Nails Magazine Next Top Nail Artist competition. She was the only one from Canada entered among the 13 finalists.
“All of the artists, they’re very, very talented, so I was honoured just to be in the top 13,” said McClement in an interview with the Mercury. “I enjoy the creativity a lot. That’s my thing. If somebody gives me a challenge to do, my brain is always going and I think about what I can create.”
She won an engraved trophy and congratulatory gifts of product from brand partners.
Nails Magazine encouraged her to enter the competition after seeing her work on Instagram. She has also competed in the Nailympia international competition, finishing fourth three times, and has also emerged victorious in other contests, all in the seven years since she became a nail technician.
“I was debating whether or not I should [enter the Nails Magazine contest], and then I decided I might as well go for it, so I did. And then they chose the top 13 out of … hundreds of entries,” said McClement.
She had to submit a portfolio of her work, including awards that she has won, and she had to participate in a video interview.
Once she was in the top 13, there were several elimination rounds.
“They would give you challenges. They would … give you a theme, and then you had to create a set of nails or whatever they wanted done from that said theme. They would tell you different criteria that they wanted, and then you would submit your entries. They wanted certain photos and videos sent to them, and then thy chose from that.”
When she was picked to go up against 12 other artists, she thought that would be as good as it would get, but she kept moving on until she reached the final. A panel of judges decided who would advance.
She had to create five different designs for the competition. The first one was a summer theme, and allowed her to come up with her own design. McClement painted kids playing in a pool.
The next was childhood memories, so she had several watercolour portraits of herself as a child on a set of five nails, with three-dimensional flowers and other images.
“They wanted to see your sculpting skills, so sculpting is when you create the nail, the long nail, so I sculpted a very long nail in an ocean theme, and it had hand-sculpted seahorses underneath, and hand-painted miscellaneous stuff on that. There’s a lot that went into it.”
The next one was a Game of Thrones theme, with long, dragon-type nails that glowed in the dark, and three-dimensional elements on them that she said were detachable using magnets.
The nails she created for the final round were her favourite. The three finalists could design anything they wanted, but it had to be on short nails that couldn’t go beyond the tip of a finger. She selected the artwork that was at the Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
“I ended up doing an Italian-themed design, with hand-painted … female portraits and miscellaneous,” said McClement.
For the most part, McClement could complete the work on nail tips that could be removed except for the last one, when she had to paint on somebody’s nails. Her daughter-in-law Hannah McClement served as the model.
Nail competitions take a lot of work, she said. When she is in the midst of an event, she is working on entries. Nailympia, for example, is a very strict event.
“They give you a category, and they have a very long set of rules, and if you break any of them, you’ll be disqualified. They give you a topic, a list of rules of what you can and cannot do, and then you just go crazy.”
sMcClement said she has always been an artist. Once she started watching people come up with creative nail designs on Instagram, she decided to try it. So, she obtained her certification and took courses, travelling to Vancouver and Los Angeles.
“It’s just my creative spirit, and it’s just another artistic outlet that I have so I’m thoroughly enjoying it. And then there’s competing. I do regular nails, too, just regular salon nails, but the competitions have definitely been my favourite.”
She was recently contacted by Scratch Magazine in the U.K., and was encouraged to submit photos of her nail designs for a magazine cover.
McClement said she is currently booked up with clients. When she isn’t designing nails, she helps run GenCo Asphalt with her husband Doug.
