tattoo apprenticeship assignments ⛓️

Hello lovelies~

I wanted to share some assignments I have completed through my tattoo apprenticeship so far! These were all done with graphite pencils.

In the beginning, I was assigned a lot of marble portraits to draw. This was to train my eye to recognize dark/light/midtones within them and learn how to render that through the application of different shades of gray & black, making sure to provide contrast in key places to have a striking picture. This is the fundamentals of tattooing! A lot of my realism assignments (the marble portraits, rose, skull, tiger) focused on training my eye for proportions, as well as my hand to be able to shade seamlessly. You may be able to see my shading getting more accurate and smoother with time, as I have dated each assignment.

Further into the apprenticeship is when I began to draw more traditional pieces, including american traditional tattoo designs (the bird) & japanese traditional as well (the man on the horse and the geisha on the koi fish). These taught me the importance of line weight, shading solid black smoothly, and composition - as well as everything mentioned before.

My mentors wanted me to be able to be well rounded in all of the different styles so when I start tattooing and designing my own tattoos, I can apply these key principles to my art. A bulk of my apprenticeship was just drawing (for 6 weeks straight in fact). Because tattoos are more than just a beautiful piece of artwork. It must be dynamic, meticulous in application, and be able to be readable on the skin for hopefully decades. Which is so rad!

The traditional pieces are my personal favorite to draw, as it aligns more with my current illustrative style ◡̈ (I also enjoyed doing the realism tiger because.. well you know, tigers!!!)

Overall, I truly have loved this process. Although I have now graduated to tattooing fake skin, I have drawing assignments every week to further build my foundation and strengthen my hand/wrist flexiblity. It has been an intensive yet deeply rewarding journey so far. I’ve learned so much already & have so much more to learn as well. I never would’ve believed that I could be able to draw like this, so I feel very thankful to my mentors that have helped me unlock this potential within myself.

These are just a fraction of the drawing assignments I have completed in 2 months. Crazy to look back at it all. But I have another month left in my apprenticeship, so I will share more drawings with you all soon~~

I’m also editing the second tattoo apprenticeship diaries vlog as we speak! Although it might take me awhile since I have so much footage from filming nonstop, oop 🫢

Ok ramble over!!!

Hope you all enjoy this little sneak peek of everything I’ve been working so hard on.

SENDING LOVE,

Ang x