I drew Daria tattooing at Tremuschi Ink, the studio where she creates her works.
I swung for the fences with this one, and I kinda missed. To try and apply my new techniques of mixed media coloring to such a complex, detailed drawing – with such deep space!- was perhaps an act of hubris. I barely have a grasp of this new approach, and definitely don’t feel skilful in handling pastels.
And I absolutely loved the drawing in its original state. But I felt I had to see if I could make it even better. I’m not sure I did.
Luckily, in a moment of foresight, I photocopied the original line drawing.
The scan is dark, because the photocopy picked up the midtone of the kraft paper, and I hadn’t finished drawing Daria’s tattoo machine. Someone with better digital editing skills than me can sort out the values, prolly.
I was quite scared to add the mixed media (pastel, oil pastel and markers) to the line drawing, and it took me almost a month to get down to it.
Rightly so; it turned out to be a bit beyond me to fully reconcile the values so the drawing reads well.
I kinda feel like I destroyed something I really liked, and that’s good. You gotta kill your darlings in the art biz.
After all, I can always make another drawing of Daria making a tattoo. And I want to go back to Tremuschi and draw Vivi tattooing too, when she gets back from her tattoo cons of Europe tour! I might do a whole series of drawings of women tattoo artists of Berlin!
The organizers had decided not to hire any professional models or performers, so all the models were volunteers.
Her pretty boy killed the suspenders-no-shirt look, too.
