Exercise: Tattoo

History

Prehistoric

Eurasian practice since 3300BC, tattooed mummies, therapeutic?

Ancient world

China

·         Criminals, slaves and bandits

·         Popular culture

Egypt , India, Indonesia

·         Cultural symbols among tribes

Philipines

·         Form of rank and accomplishment

·         Magical qualities

Europe

·         Pre-Christian Germanic, Celtic and central and northern European tribes heavily tattooed

·         Picts: dark blue woad tattoos or scarification

·         Scandinavian Rus 10C blue hand and arm tattoos tree patterns and figures

·         Seen as elements of paganism during Christianisation

·         Greece: slaves

Japan

·         10,000BC (Paleolithic) spiritual and decorative

·         17C-mid19C denote trades / status: firemen, manual workers, prostitutes

·         1720-1870 criminals as punishment

·         Samurai warriors

·         Tattooing made illegal creating a subculture of outcasts with visible tats

Samoa

·         Tatau applied by hand for > 2000 years with little change in tools and techniques

·         Leg tattoos

·         Painful, dangerous, expensive, slow, sign of honouring tribal traditions / rite of passage

·         Seen as barbaric and inhumane by Christian missionaries

NZ Maori, Polynesian origin

·         Ta moko = carved by chisels (of albatross bone, struck with a mallet) left skin with grooves as opposed to the puncturing of tattoo or tatau

·         Symmetrical, filigree, spirals, unique

·         Tattooists considered sacred

·         Denoted high rank status and rite of passage

·         Men: face, buttock, thighs (+backs, stomachs, calves)

·         Women: lips, chins (+foreheads, nostrils, buttocks, thighs, necks, backs)

·         Practice changed in 19C: needles instead of chisels-safer/smoother; NZers of European descent collected tattooed heads- ta moko practice ceased

·         Resurgence since 1990

 

Persia

·         Tattooing, body painting and piercing present in culture for thousands of years (gods, kings, soldiers)

19C

Became popular amongst the ‘gentry’ in Western Europe

Famous people with tattoos:

·         Kings George V, Edward VII, Frederick IX (Denmark), Kaiser Wilhelm II (Romania), Alexander (Yugoslavia), Tsar Nicholas II (Russia), Alfonso XIII (Spain)-mainly coats of arms and crests.

·         Prince Albert, Queen Victoria (rumoured), Lady Randolph and Winston

Contemporary

Have become more popular in the population in general, especially among women

Fashions for Celtic and Asian symbols, floral, cartoon and tribal motifs as well as cosmetic tattoos.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tattooing

Pictures: 1000 Tattoos Taschen 2005 ISBN978-3-8228-4107-5

Some of my favourite contemporary artists

Angelique Houtkamp

Classic designs with a modern twist

https://www.facebook.com/angeliquehoutkamp

http://www.salonserpent.com/angelique.html

Guen Douglas

Sweet, quirky, colourful, classic

http://www.guendouglas.com/

WT Norbert

Similar in style to Angelique Houtkamp and Guen Douglas

http://hunterandfoxtattoo.com/section/315116_W_T_Norbert.html

Mr X

Monochrome, brutal and skilful

http://www.duncanx.com/new/sections/photos/1/gallery.html

Also of interest

Guy Aitchison

This is a lovely, colourful, elegant tattoo

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSatePxZlxHR3vrnL9bsWdtGZC3OgV7itFGNBXeoUARqr6gFzsu

Victor Portugal

Dark and intricate

http://www.victorportugal.com/home#!__home/tattoos

Franco Vescovi

Incredibly detailed, dark and elegant

http://francovescovi.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/slide12.jpg

Deano Cook

Photorealistic style

http://www.psychotats.com/newweb/pages/DeanoCook/DeanoCook.htm

I also love these classics from the mid-20C by Ron Ackers

Brief is to design for a male friend- masculine design and mother’s day card- feminine design

How to combine the two aspects?

I asked a visiting friend, who is a mother with a tattoo for her ideas on how one of her sons could honour her with a tattoo. Some of her ideas

·         It should include masculine and feminine elements because he came from his father as well as his mother

·         Yin-yang / sperm shape with a flick at the tail

·         Sperm and egg looking like a lotus flower, beautiful not sexual although her son recognises her sexual nature

·         Heart and flower motif would seem inappropriate as it symbolises romantic love which is part of her relationship with her partner, not her son

·         Could include her son’s nickname when he was a very young child (Tita)

·         Should be a message adult to adult not child to mother

·         ‘Made by initials’

·         A secret message of love between the two

·         Plant/creation

·         Scottish / hereditary theme / coat of arms in a heart

Other (silly) ideas

·         A gin and tonic

·         Burnt toast

·         Black widow

·         A foetus tattooed on the abdomen

·         A portrait

I saw a wildlife programme on TV about the snow crane and thought to use it as a symbol of devotion, but 50% survival rate of offspring is not a lucky omen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Crane

I did an internet search:

Symbols for son

https://www.google.es/search?q=symbols+of+the+son&hl=en&tbo=u&rlz=1C1AVSA_enES462&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=3Hz0UJ_4OsjVtAaCmYGwAg&ved=0CDIQsAQ&biw=1600&bih=749

Tooth/hands https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR76EsL2GgAaoZyCsLHkCyXgIcGE0jUE_W9OOKlbXzvtc7Yc52g7A

Symbols for motherhood

https://www.google.es/search?q=symbols+of+motherhood&hl=en&tbo=u&rlz=1C1AVSA_enES462&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=zHz0UPa4KIXptQbTg4GgAg&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=1600&bih=749

Hand and heart

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTzc_0BkRBj_Jp1YQXFRrRstV-J7A_de5ZYMhsKWIiWeH-24tv2HA

Lyndsey Lohan

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTzc_0BkRBj_Jp1YQXFRrRstV-J7A_de5ZYMhsKWIiWeH-24tv2HAhttps://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTzc_0BkRBj_Jp1YQXFRrRstV-J7A_de5ZYMhsKWIiWeH-24tv2HA

Turga and Ganesha

http://www.dollsofindia.com/product/folk-art-paintings/mother-and-son-durga-and-ganesha-kalighat-painting-water-color-on-paper-CE08.html

Pink carnation symbol of mothers’ day...not inspiring

Motherhood symbol in other alphabets (Japanese, Arabic, Russian, Chinese). These tend to go out of fashion

Arabic love symbol  https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT7uEXgq9yQjQzVngYNOSOW6H7WE3GinszgWR-Y1-SA5cepkghIEA

Japanese style very fashionable now

Spider diagram and thumbnails

At this stage I designed the lettering and decided that I’d like to make a fairly intricate design in lines to go with it.

I returned to the idea of using a bird image, further research http://www.squidoo.com/divine-birds led me to find out that the crane was sacred to mother goddess Demeter in Roman mythology: long life, health, happiness, wisdom, good luck.

More thumbnails

During this process I was simplifying the crane symbol from full bird to wings to feathers and found some beautiful feather designs on pinterest

https://pinterest.com/kylaroma/tattoo-adore/

http://pinterest.com/mommamoograss/tattoo-ideas-ya-dig/

feather http://pinterest.com/pin/234327986832712195/

Really inspiring patterns http://pinterest.com/pegabo/tangles-mandalas/

http://pinterest.com/pin/126593439496800596/

It was very hard not to copy these but I used my own scan of feathers I’d collected and internet images of crane feathers as reference, eventually taking patterns and symbols from tribal tattoos to make the design more masculine.

I sketched half the basic design in pencil, scanned it, copied it and flipped it over to check that it worked in terms of symmetry

Then set about finishing the pencil drawing and inking it in, tracing the outline of the left half and using it as a template for the right half

I then set about filling in the patterns, eventually cutting out the line work in photoshop

I don’t think the tattoo needs colour but I decided to experiment with the card by adding layers below the line work in photoshop and inverting the line work to make it white

On reflection:

I’m very pleased with my design, it’s definitely not mawkish, I think it successfully combines masculine (monochrome, symmetrical) and feminine (curved, organic) elements, symbolism from tribal tattoos and Roman mythology, and the letters reflect the curved and intertwining elements form the Arabic love symbol and the Triskele, the Celtic symbol for motherhood.

This was the first exercise where I really started to explore ideas visually through drawing, thinking on the page and surrendering to the drawing paid off as it got me out of several stuck periods.

As an afterthought I decided to transform the design into a vector image by using live trace in illustrator, this has smoothed out the lines and might work better as for the card if not for the tattoo. Now I just need to work out how to add coloured elements in illustrator.

I also redrew the design without the 'mum' using my tablet and vectorised this image, thinking to possibly screen print it onto fabric e.g. a t-shirt.

Workshop: Making artist books

I went to a lovely workshop in a yurt at the weekend on making artist books with simple techniques

http://casagaia.co.uk/?page_id=960

We learnt how to 

• decorate paper with marbling inks and water based paints and inks
• how to fold and cut the paper 
• how to make and attach hard backed covers

I haven't done marbling since I was at primary school and was re-inspired by the possibilities of this technique to invigorate drawings and papers and provide an interesting ground for collage.

I didn't manage to make anything particularly beautiful during the workshop but plan to use the techniques again...hopefully to better effect.

Exercise: Menu card

I took lots of photos of fresh fish at the market, my screen saver is a Japanese wood block print of a fish by Hiroshige https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-F76zAzp-5RENEcMK6wbP0qlxQf0or2AyUH59kYNYku0VX6nNTw there’s another woodblock print (Nepalese) in the house

and I collected a couple of other fish images, but beyond that I decided not to do a massive internet search for fish related images before undertaking this exercise as I got a bit overloaded with beautiful artworks by other artists while doing the children’s book cover exercise and I think it blocked me a bit; partly because I felt inadequate in comparison and partly because I was trying so hard not to copy....

  This cut palm trunk reminded me of fish stacked together

Spider diagram and thumbnails

This thumbnail was the stand-out one for me, it’s simple, clean, elegant and the curves remind me of the arches of a bridge or cathedral; both city-type constructions. It also works well as a 4x4cm image and could be scaled up or tiled to cover larger spaces. It’s such a simple design that I’m sure someone else has come up with it before but I arrived at it legitimately through my thumbnail sketching process so now it’s mine!

The repeating curves seemed to make it a good subject for a vector drawing...I spent several hours using the (bloody) pen tool in illustrator and came up with this.

Not bad for a novice but the fish don’t fill the space well enough and my attempts to rectify that led to much swearing and frustration so I moved onto drawing with the tablet in photoshop, trying different backgrounds (photos of papers, concrete, rust, wood etc) and stroke colours. These are my favourites so far.

 

I’ve kept the background colours neutral, and the dark line works better than a white one for clarity and scale changes. Obviously this line work is a bit rough so I need to refine it. I’d like to end up with a vector drawing for scaling reasons so may try a manual line visual which I can then live trace in illustrator...I also need more (bloody) pen tool practice...

I drew some more, slightly larger thumbnails in pencil to help me decide on the final shape and position of the fish, asking a couple of friends for their input. One of them’s in catering –she liked the ‘fishmonger’ stacking of the fish and pointed out that the cross hatched fish scales look like a fishing net, both of which suggest freshness. 

At this point I read an interesting tutorial in Digital Arts magazine by the illustrator Marguerite Sauvage who works at fairly small scale in pencil and scans her work directly to photoshop, adding colour and texture in layers http://www.margueritesauvage.com/. I like the simple lines and handmade feel of her drawings and the was inspired to give some of the tips in her comparatively straightforward tutorial a go.

So I scanned my chosen line visual to photoshop and illustrator,

Inverted it just for fun, it’s like a chalk drawing on a blackboard

Live traced it in illustrator just to see how it compared...

Tried another vector drawing

 I liked my pencil version best so I cleaned it up a bit, multiplied it with layered photos and added a border

I really like these, the green one is similar to my jazz poster for assignment 3; could it be that I’ve found ‘my style’?

I tried rotating the design and now it appears that the fish are swimming, which is more dynamic than hanging but I’ve lost the symmetry through the vertical midline which made it more balanced.

Of course, these aren’t vector images but with a high enough resolution scaling them up shouldn’t be a problem.

   

   Here are some more versions

The final choice would obviously depend on the colour scheme of the restaurant but my favourite is this one for the soft green colour and wateriness of the background (it’s a sushi plate, which is apt)

I’ll try some of Marguerite’s colour tips now and see if that enhances the design.

I used my tablet with the brush tool to add some orange and red touches to the layers in photoshop, forgetting to check that the background colour was the right shade of blue in the first two versions

 

But the orange didn’t come out as brightly once I had the blue right... 

I like these but I’m wondering about the association between green and rotting or sickness (green around the gills) and red and blood (most meat eaters don’t want to be reminded of the slaughter involved in their dinner).

So I’ll stick with my original choice, unadulterated. It’s clear, simple, elegant, handmade and has a watery quality to it.

About a week after I finished this exercise I decided to have a look at other fish logos, this site does what it says on the tin...http://www.blogohblog.com/30-creative-fish-logos/

I particularly like the 8 fish, Robert Fish Band and Green Fish logos but am still happy with mine.