I have always wanted to be a tattooist. I even wrote my A Level project on tattoos, I have been drawing daggers and snakes on my hands in biro since I can’t remember when. So I signed up to Mike Stockings’s Patreon and got cracking!
On the iPad in Procreate.
This is some portrait practice I did in Procreate after doing Gabrielles tut to see if I could do it 100% without guidance. It turned out ok I think. The Model Sam is from the amazing Draw Brighton archives as ever.
I am a big fan of a pun and this arose out of one of them.
The neverending job of sorting out photos and I came across this reel I shot back in April 2023. Shot on an inherited Cosina ct1G entirely with sunny 16 (basically guessing) came out with these really nicely contrasty images. Self dev in Bellini monobath.
I created this tiger in procreate and then my old water bottles paint was chipping off, so an idea was born… Two colours spray paint and then a bit of acrylic painting. Had to under paint in white because the blue is such a strong colour.
I have photographed this so many time idk why I find it fascinating.
Here’s the final scan of a portrait of the fantastic Aflo the Poet. The photo was from the fab Draw Brighton. I drew this in ink and pro markers with a hint of white ink on heavyweight water colour paper. I really enjoyed this and it’s sort of a preliminary for a larger watercolour piece.
There is so much I got wrong here. I am not sure why I cannot take the time and get the under drawing and proportions right. You’d think I would learn patience by now!
For this I sketched it in non-photo blue pencil and then inked in my sketchbook. Then I scanned it and transferred it on to watercolour paper with a light pad. Something changed with the proportions when I scanned it and it got a bit larger for some reason.
Here is a design I made in procreate. I was thinking of having it as a back of hand tattoo. It’s a dragon, can you tell? My son thought it was a tiger or something…
I have spent ages on this tut and I finally finished it so I wanted to post IMMEDIATELY! I am really happy with the result of this tutorial I did from Gabrielle Brickey (@artworkbygabrielle on insta) it was a fantastic tutorial and I learnt so much about portraits, digital painting and procreate. Thank you Gabrielle! I think there is still a few things I could do better but it has given me the skills I needed to take forward two other portraits I have on the go. I can thoroughly recommend the tut (she has 40% on her store rn btw)
We almost touched
Side by side on the sofa
That sank towards the middle
And the electricity
Of the almost touching
Had nowhere to earth
blew the tv
And we jumped back away from each other
Laughing