Learning How to Tattoo Well

Tattoing is an art form that many people think of like drawing. That is not entirely true. There are some important overlaping skills but it is not the same.

A good tattoo artist has a strong eye for shape, color, and line work. I am going to give you some exercises that will help you regardless of the type of art you want to do:

Draw in pencil everyday. Draw the things that are around you as exactly as possible, don't shade anything. Tattoos are very much defined by the line, get used to thinking about the things you draw as the parts that can be described only as lines. Keep these drawing in a safe place for later.

Push yourself to draw as complicated things as you can, the pattern of brick on a building, wall paper, or designs from clothing.

Once you have 10 -12 finished drawings get a medium tip pen and a glass table or a window. Place a clean sheet of paper over your drawing and ink all of your lines. You are trying to make your lines as clean (not wobbly) as possible. Compare your original and the inked version. You will notice that many of the intricate details bleed together.

Repeat the pencil and ink process again. Over time you will find that your choice of lines, your inking, and your ability to draw in strange positions will improve.

Second comes learning to visualize how shapes change when they are applied to a surface that isn't flat.

Start by collecting coffee cups, or any drawable container, ink your drawings directly on to the surface of the cup with your medium tip pen. Keep going until your lines are as good on a cup as they are on a flat paper.

Now that you can ink a cup get some wide masking tape and tape a body part putting each strip right next to another strip. Now use your medium tip pen to lay your lines down. Notice how the image looks form different angles and how the body part changes the appearance of the image.

Getting a good sense of color for tattooing is going to be a major value. Not only do you have to understand what a color will look like when it mixes with flesh tones you need to get good at picking an separating colors.

The best way to get used to thinking about color separation is to do some collages. Get colored paper and make a shape. Now create shadows for that shape by putting a different color on top of it. Once you have a good sense of how the colors interact try making shapes and shadows as separate pieces with as little overlap as possible. I suggest starting with light colors and adding the darker colors. Darks can cover lights, but getting rid of dark color doesn't work well.

Get some tattoo picture books.

Get some books that have lots of pictures. Look to see what colors you see, and don't see, and how they are used together. Use your inking skills to replicate the designs you see with clean lines. As you look through 100s of pictures you will see that really amazing tattoos have great line work, that will be your most important skill, rendering clean lines.

Pick up some markers.

Now that you have a good sense of line shape and color pick up a basic set of Prismacolor or Copic Markers. These are some nice quality markers that you can use to practice more color combination and separation. Keep practicing until you can do an intricate pattern or picture on a coffee cup with clean lines.

Design a tattoo for yourself.

You shouldn't be putting things on other peoples bodies until you know the experience first hand creating and going through the process as the canvas.

Find someone to apprentice with.

Start off flyering for an artist you like and show them that you are dedicated and want to work for them. As an apprentice you are an assistant, you will start learning about all the things the shop does before you get to work on people. These are important skills to know, you will probably spend more of your career cleaning up and setting up than you will inking. So, use your apprenticeship to make friends and challenge yourself. Anytime that you get a chance do a version of things you hear people working on. Look at the flash on the wall and think about how you can make it unique. And most of all be friendly -- tattooing involves a lot of time dealing with people.

Good Luck!