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!