How I approach your tattoo idea

Nature is beautiful

All my work is nature-focused, owing to my childhood growing up in the fields and forests outside of a small town. I didn't know it at the time, but perhaps my choice to study biology in college was as much from a subconscious interest in studying the environment around me as it was from (short-lived) aspirations to be an optometrist. But I kept looking around, identifying the best opportunity available at the time, and pursuing it until reaching another decision point. I continued studying the environment from a science perspective for 17 years, earning a doctorate (Ph.D.) in plant ecology and tenure as a university professor.

Being a student of art and science

I bring a scientific and academic background to my creative work, and all that entails. In part, it entails a love for the subject matter, a knowledge and appreciation for the diversity of organisms (mostly plants, birds, and insects), an attention to detail that helps to faithfully reproduce an organism's likeness, and a commitment to realism with nature as my guide. But I've also undertaken the artistic training needed to understand how value and color temperature changes in the transitions from light to shadow, to mix colors accurately as found in the natural world, to fit the subject's (e.g. a plant's) form to a person's, in the case of a tattoo, and myriad other artistic concepts. In total, the success of an artwork is largely the culmination of countless decisions by the artist, and I have trained to be informed both from scientific and artistic perspectives.

If my intent is not photographic realism, then what is it?

I aim to honestly depict nature as I see it, which benefits from an attuned attention to detail to accurately depict light, shadow, color, and structure. These are the same aims as traditional botanical illustrators whose work served as a tool for plant identification as much or more than for its beauty. This artistic practice was replaced quickly with the advent and later the accessibility of photography, yet a community of botanical illustrators and enthusiasts persists. Perhaps they persist, as with all visual arts, because a good painting is better than a photo. A painter with an eye for color, drama, and design can exaggerate reality with the intent to enhance the natural beauty of the subject. And while photographic realism takes tremendous skill, patience, and attention to detail, knowing what to exaggerate, and how, is a different skillset.

Bringing that perspective to you

Plants, and nature generally, have a way of conveying symbolism, whether as the official bird of a person's home state, a butterfly that reminds them of a loved one, a plant that features in their garden, or a flower whose symbolism was conveyed in Victorian times. People connect with nature, and plants make up a large portion of that. I create beautiful and accurate depictions of the plants and animals that connect people to the people, places, and experiences that they cherish. Much of this entails envisioning the different sizes, textures, and colors of the plants, birds, insects, etc. included in an arrangement, and finding cohesion among them. Because after all, you are the thread that holds them together, the reason that they're important together, and I want to bring out their harmony together.

Putting it into practice

All of this means that I work from photos of real plants, animals, and the like, but I may allow some details to be sharpened while others are blurred, some colors to be brightened while others are dulled, some tones warmed while others are cooled. I work from a limited palette of pigments, as painters typically do (and tattooers almost never do), so that I can custom mix every color to ensure that it has the properties I want in service to the piece. I prize interesting silhouettes, and so find opportunities to let the design "breathe" with open spaces throughout, and to accentuate the focal points. And I fit each piece to the body deliberately, often preparing a design a week or more ahead of each session for your approval but with the flexibility to erase, redraw, or otherwise adjust it to fit the person, not the paper.