Video:How to Practice Tattooing
with Debbie WilliamsIt's imperative to practice tattooing before doing so on a real person. Here's advice on what objects are best to practice on, which techniques need to be mastered, and how to know when you're ready to move onto your first lucky subject.
Transcript:How to Practice Tattooing
Hi! My name is Debbie Williams, owner and tattooer at Pangea Tattoo in Lafayette, Colorado. I am here today with About.com to talk to you about how to practice tattooing.
How Long Should You Practice?
The amount of time it takes for someone to be ready to start tattooing on an actual human varies from person to person. We all learn at different rates.
Practice Tattooing on Objects that Replicate the Curvature of the Human Body
In my apprenticeship we were required to practice on grapefruits. It still has somewhat of the curvature of the human body. Some people practice on potatoes, some people practice on other fruit. You are getting the practice for the feel of the machine and that is important in the initial stages.
Practice Drawing and Sketching Tattoos
It's important to know how to draw. For aesthetic reasons you want to be able to know how to compose a tattoo, how to put a tattoo together, to know how to shade, to know how to sketch things out appropriately on your clients' body. Draw different things. Draw different subjects. Practice on other things, but to actually tattoo on human skin, you are getting the actual feel and there is nothing else like it.
Practice Tattooing On Your Own Skin First
I would initially practice on myself, the apprentice first, before getting any volunteers to start working on. It's your art, and for your clients, your customers, you want to know how ink is going to take to a certain part of your body. You want to know how it feels, especially, because you are potentially going to be putting clients through the pain and once you are comfortable and you think you can do a quality tattoo on someone, ask some friends that would be willing.
Tattooing is a Complex Art
It can take two months to learn how to be a tattoo artist if that is the quality of tattoos that you want to put out. Tattooing is a complex art and there are so many variables to that art. The longer that you allow yourself to learn, the better tattooer you are going to be.
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