10 week drawing challenge
for self taught tattoo artists
Aim: Complete the 1 page per week, if you can repeat each page multiple times, even better. The more repetition, the stronger your skills will develop (it's science)
Week 1: Learning shadows and shapes
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These are the fundamentals of quality black and grey tattooing that all beginners and self taught artists should learn and practice.
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Note and remember these types of shadows and the role they play. You’ll see them a lot. Think about how the shadows behave in different shapes, and where the light is coming from and how they effects the shadow.
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Take anything from where you are, I took a cup and drew that. Break down the shape with simple shapes and build from there. Then, break down the shadows and where they fall, thinking about the tones you’re using to communicate each shadow’s darkness or lightness.
Week 2: Contour and Form
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The shape describes a 2-dimensional shape such as a circle. The form is what makes that circle into a 3-dimensional sphere (similar to the lines on a globe as seen in figure 2.)
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Those lines and the shadows and highlights what communicate at the shape has form and is 3-dimensional.
When I draw, I like to use those form lines to help me figure out the 3-dimensional shape and where the shadows would fall.
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I’ll use that for simple shapes like in figure 8, and I repeat this process in more detail and with more layers for things like the snake head.
You’ll see how I like to draw by mimicking nature to make my drawings and tattoos look believable.
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In figure 6, in the bottom left-hand corner, you can see how I use this spiral effect for snake bodies to calculate the shape and angles of the belly.
We’re now finding ways to recreate the organic process of light falling on shapes and into an illusion of fooling our eyes into perceiving our drawing the same way it perceives shapes in nature being effected by light and shadows.
Week 3: Shadows, shape and light source
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Notice the relationship with light, shadows and shape. Generally, shadows on a cube are flat one tone shadows, as there is no change in shape to create a shadow/change in tone (figure 2.)
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The snake body is made up of a simple tube shape and shadows with the scale shape layered on top. The scales again consider shape and shadows (figure 3.) the light comes from above and creates a darker edge on the bottom of the scale.
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Also the different types of shadows and how complex shadows are just multiple simple shadows (figure 5.)
