I believe that an art that may be looked down on by many is
the art of tattooing. When I was a young girl, my dream was to always become a
tattoo artist. This was a dream that was not very supported while I was growing
up. When we would all sit around in second and third grade, I always found it
shocking that my teacher would tell my fellow classmates that dreams of
becoming the United States president was more believable than my dream of
becoming a tattoo artist. I believe that my drive came from spite to prove all
of my non-believer wrong. They saw me, a young, innocent, girl has having a
wild hair that I would eventually grow out of, BUT NO! I knew that one day I
would have a sleeve of the solar system on my arm, and a heard of camels on my
toe, and a wistful dragon up my back. I knew that it would one day be my
destiny.
Sadly, their predictions did eventually come true. I did grow
that wild hair out. It was only a fantasy of mine. Although being a tattoo
artist would completely be rad, I had to think about the current economy and
what served better for my future. I am currently a math education major. Yea, I
know.
Boring.
This was a tough decision I made when I was graduating high
school. I decided it would be a more mature decision and it would better
benefit me in terms of security and such.
The artwork that I choose to write about today is my first tattoo. It is a picture of a cherry blossom tree (although my mother would really describe it as Satan’s hand resting on back— not saying that I don’t
equally think that idea is bad ass). I got this my sophomore year of college. Some techniques I used while designing it is by using different dimensions. I wanted to make it look 3-dimensional. Some branches are shaded with a lighter color to give the illusion of being farther back compared to the darker ones up front. I also tried to use texturing in this piece as well. This technique was important while shading the contours of the tree crevasses. And finally, I wanted the
overall piece to have an assymetrical balance. I wanted the tree to start on the left side of my upper back and then to eventually branch out to the right.
This will always be my favorite art piece. It was the first thing I did to finally step into my own as an adult and I will never regret getting it.