Tattoos, despite their maligned reputation, are a serious and permanent way to express yourself in a sometimes-meaningful way and in the best cases it can go a great way towards outwardly establishing one’s identity. The act of inking someone’s skin is a practice that needs great skill, care and creativity that deserves the same respect and even more than its more traditional counterparts in the field of art.
Kyle S Valentine is a tattoo artist at Soul Ink Studios and has turned his passion for art into a medium of self-expression. He shared with us his experiences working in a much misunderstood profession.
Q : What do you enjoy most about tattoo work?
The reason I love doing tattoos as opposed to painting is this. For someone to want to come up to you and say that they want your artwork on their skin, for them to carry it around for the rest of their lives, just humbles and honours me, compared to someone just buying a painting and hanging it in their living room. People love their bodies, it’s a temple for a lot of people and nobody wants to put anything bad on their bodies. So, for someone to say your art is worth being on their body for the rest of their lives, gives me a great feeling to get to do something like that.
Q : What’s the worst thing about being a tattoo artist?
The misconceptions. Many people think it’s easy, or is just a fad to be a tattoo artist. Tattoos have a stigma to it. That’s one thing I don’t like, when people give you certain looks when you tell them, but lately things have been different. People are more excited than judging.
Q : What kind of training or skills did you need to start?
I had formal training in an apprenticeship for tattooing, but art, I was self-taught. At the age of 15 or16 I was engaged in my painting career because I was really good in art ever since I was a kid, so that it came to me pretty easily. Around that time, I had just finished my O/Ls, I did it privately on my own. I knew I was good at art so I just thought I would keep to it and end up doing something with it.
I had proper formal training in tattoo art with Uditha at Soul Ink. I started as an apprentice and from there I was taught how to do tattoos professionally.
Q : How do you improve as a tattoo artist?
Draw, draw and draw. Drawing really helps because you remember that you are just drawing on skin. So, by drawing a lot of pieces in your own style, it helps muscle memory. You have to draw like you’re tattooing, and because you’re tattooing you have to hold the machine in a certain way, so that eventually your muscle memory adapts to it. When you follow that things become a lot easier.
In the beginning, you don’t just get to straightaway tattoo skin. You have to practice skins on fake skins. It’s not the best representation of skin but it gives you an idea how to work with a similar texture, deepness and so on. Initially, it’s good to practice on fake skin, practice on fruits and most importantly, draw. Drawing is very important.
Q : What’s the difference between a good tattoo artist and a bad one?
At the end of the day, an artist is an artist and I believe an important mindset for every artist is to want to grow. The mindset to want to make your next piece better than your last; to always want to do something new when it comes to your work. If you have that it’s great but if you think you’re comfortable with what you’re doing, that’s when you start getting stagnant. You can clearly see when an artist is stagnant and comfortable because they’ve stopped caring. Not caring is a problem because through their work you can see whether they care or not.
So, the way to find a really good tattoo artist is through their mindset. In artistry, it’s not just skill, you have to be able to build concepts and do original artwork.
Q : Have you made any mistakes on the job? What have you learnt from them?
As an artist, you need to be able to adapt and train yourself. Tattooing doesn’t leave room for errors, so you have to be good. You have to focus, have a clear head and know what you’re doing. That’s what most people don’t get. People think you can just pick up a machine and start drawing on skin. That’s not all, you need to understand the technique.
You need to think about hygiene, about the preparation, about how certain tattoos heal on certain skin. How deep you need to go. If you go too deep it shoots up and if it’s too shallow, it fades. You need to think about all that when it comes to tattoos. When you make mistakes in traditional art, you can just blend this or that. You don’t have to think as deeply, except maybe in watercolours.
The closest thing to tattooing is watercolour because when you put too much water on paper, you end up chewing up the paper, similarly, if you keep cutting at the skin it starts chewing up and would leave a bloody scar; except that with watercolour you can just chuck the paper, but you can’t just chuck the client out the window. So, in the instance you do make a mistake, you need to be able to adapt and work with it, do something about it. You need to be creative.
Earlier on in my career I made some minor mistakes but thanks to my apprenticeship, I was able to avoid any major screw ups.
Q : What is your advice for someone considering this as a career?
Well, it’s best that you have a history in art because at the end of the day, tattooing is just another medium of expression; just like painting, illustrating or digital art. It’s just a different medium except that your canvas is not paper, cloth or a screen; it’s another living being’s skin. It’s vital that you do an apprenticeship, where you learn about all that goes into tattooing. I wasn’t allowed to touch the machines for like a whole year. I was just cleaning up the place, washing and learning about hygiene most of the time and drawing.
Q : What are the most common questions asked by your clients?
They always ask me whether it hurts, how much does it hurt? And I ask if they ever had their eyebrows done which hurts more than getting a tattoo. I tell them it hurts like a cat scratch at first and then it feels like a vibration across your skin.