Recently, (2014 actually) well 7 months ago, I signed myself up for a tattoo apprenticeship!
A friend of mine from college had joined and was about to graduate as a full-fledged tattoo artist when she popped by a party I was hosting and we chatted all night about how the shop/program appreciated its apprentices. All about how there was a constant flow of knowledge and how they offered their graduates actual jobs with every opportunity to succeed. I was really blown away by how amazing she was just talking about it and how much better her artwork had gotten since joining.
So I signed up for the first workshop and then I immediately signed up for the part-time program. I still work full-time at Sooryen as a developer and client-facing manager, and thankfully our flexible hours (and amazing boss) allows me to pop out a bit early Monday and Tuesday nights to go to the apprenticeship at night. It makes working full-time with computers a lot less annoying, getting to do something with my hands, learning new techniques, something that makes my time go by and makes me proud.
It’s really been great, at a real tattoo shop, with real clients coming in, real artists who have also gone through the program, so you really know and see what the end goal is. You learn from them, practicing professional artists, they guide you through the steps that are necessary, giving you tips and lessons all the way. And sure it’s time-consuming, it’s a lot of work but it’s so rewarding and I love how it forces me to push myself artistically again, while also being in a studio atmosphere. My fellow apprentices are great and odd and awesome! It’s just something I wanted to show off. So here’s a small gallery of stuff I’ve worked on since joining the apprenticeship and hopefully there will be more posts to come, especially when I get all the way to skin!
