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Home General Drawing Exercises for Aspiring Tattoo Artists

Drawing Exercises for Aspiring Tattoo Artists

Did you know that 30% of Americans have tattoos? And the number’s even higher among Millennials. If you’re hoping to become a tattoo artist, you’ll be entering an in-demand industry with plenty of opportunities.

But you need to polish your drawing skills first. Read on to discover some drawing exercises that can help aspiring tattoo artists!

Start with Gesture Drawing

Even the best artists need to warm up. And that’s where gesture drawing comes into play. This approach to drawing is all about being loose with your lines and focusing on observation.

The result might look a little messy, but it’s an ideal starting point when you’re learning how to draw. Focus on circular drawing movements to improve your ability to capture curvaceous forms. And use a pencil so you can make revisions.

Then you can begin tackling smaller forms or objects. Aim to improve your ability to capure proportions, especially if you anticipate taking on recognizable imagery as a tattoo artist. Draw faces, bodies, and plants.

Don’t worry about stray lines at this point! And feel free to erase or redraw areas. The images that you create will form the template for your next exercises, which focus on refinement.

Focus on Clean Lines

When you’re inking a client as a tattoo artist, you’ll need to have a steady hand. That means you’ll need to spend time on some contour drawing exercises.

Take the gesture drawings you completed and grab a technical pen or ballpoint pen. Ideally, you’ll place the gesture drawings on a glass table if you have one. You also can use a window.

In either case, you’ll be able to see the gesture drawings even if you place another sheet of paper on top. Grab your technical pen, and draw over the lines in your pencil drawings. Since the original drawings were loose and gestural, you’ll have to chart your path with the pen.

Move slowly and attempt to keep the lines as clean as possible. Your goal is to avoid shaking as you strike lines on the paper.

Try Your Hand at Tracing

Once you’ve completed making pen drawings from your original gesture drawings, you’ll repeat the process. For the next round, trace over your pen drawings. You’ll need to purchase some tracing paper to do this.

Place the tracing paper over your pen drawings, and start tracing. While this might feel like a repetitive process, you’ll train your hand to be steadier.

You should plan on repeating the process again and again to see progress. Change up the size of your pen nib so you can become comfortable creating both skinny and wider lines. And take on more complex imagery as you start to gain confidence.

Just remember that any other tattoo artist you meet will have gone through a similar training process! There are ways to break up the training process, too.

Learning how to draw also means looking to other artists for inspiration. Look at contemporary artists like Chris Ware as well as vintage Pop Art masters like Andy Warhol. These artists create work that shows mastery of clean lines.

Create Drawings with Value

Your next step should be to incorporate different values into your drawings. You can take some of your pen tracings to get started. A value refers to any level of gray between black and white.

The more skilled you are at working with different values, the more dynamic your tattoo art will be. You’ll be able to create more realistic or dimensional images when you know how to place shadows and highlights.

You can apply values through more blended and smooth approaches. But you can use hatching and cross-hatching for more graphic appeal. Practice both approaches!

If it’s helpful, you may even want to create value scales. Create ten blocks, with black and white on either end, and use graphite or charcoal to add different value steps from light to dark. Try to make the blocks create an even gradation moving from one extreme to the other.

Draw on Alternative Surfaces

Wondering how to practice tattooing? Start expanding your substrates. That is, start drawing on something other than paper.

Drawing on a smooth sheet of vellum paper is decidedly different from drawing on loose flesh. You’ll need to transfer your careful approach to drawing to different types of surfaces. And you should definitely do this before working on someone’s arm or back!

Grab old pitchers, vases, and pieces of fabric. Use your pen to try drawing clean line images on each. And to really simulate the true tattooing experience, ask a friend to converse with you while you’re creating the image.

While you’re at it, start putting together a portfolio of designs. Take some of your earliest doodles and refine them into small designs that will be easy to produce. That way, you’ll be able to put some of these drawing exercises to use.

As a new tattoo artist, it’s always wise to have some go-to designs in your arsenal. And learning how to tattoo for beginners means putting together your drawing skills with some business savvy. Create a portfolio of smaller designs that you can use on some of your first jobs.

Complete These Drawing Exercises

Practicing drawing exercises is a critical step when you’re learning how to become a tattoo artist. Start with observational drawing and then begin refining your lines. Practice different approaches to shading, and then start working on curved or bumpy surfaces.

Need more tips to get your tattoo business up and running? Check back soon for new articles.

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