With an inordinate amount of time on my hands since my achilles injury I have spent most of my time organizing my house and quite a surprising amount of time thinking about and researching the central image of my tattoo.
Streaming through hundreds of pages of artwork and thousands of images resulting from searches based on the word “Love” I found myself returning over and over to images of stars – starbursts, birth of a star, various paintings and representations of stars.
I like stars’ dynamic sense of explosive energy and the overwhelmingly positive mental and emotional associations I have with stars. I like that they reside in the heavens and I like the words used to describe a star’s characteristics, words like magnitude, radiance and luminosity. I like the social and cultural anthropological significance of stars….you’ve got the picture… stars are working for me.
Not to mention that SWIU has a tattoo of stars that I love.
It’s about time I did this- SWIUs name is Jess. She is clearly no longer unmentionable.
Jess has a a tattoo of stars that I love.
I didn’t like tattoos when I met Jess, and while we were together, despite my loving her tattoos, I discouraged her from getting any more. I wish I hadn’t done that. And of course now I find myself wanting one of my own… go figure.
Anyway, back to stars. I think I’ve settled on an image. Now to decide how that image is to be realized. I still want the tattoo to be colorful but don’t want to trivialize the subject matter. Will it be possible to have images within image? eg having an ocean image within a star?- depending upon the scale it might be possible – that would be nifty.
Other considerations – placement and size -dependent on how the tattoo will change as my body changes with age. Color in relationship to my skin tone – what colors hues and tones are possible using ink and (my) skin as the media? Fonts used for my loved ones names – a different font for each person or consistent with the style of the piece?
Maybe I’m overthinking this at this early stage?? Let’s see what Ruby comes back with.
1950s illustration (its the stars and depth of field Im interested in)
By Dan Collier (interested in the horizon and the central focal point)
Tomas Del-Amo (color and composition)
David Fleetham (composition - always go back to nature!)
(color composition and style)
‘Til next time,
Simon
