Stanislava is a tattoo artist who combines in her tattoos the spirit of the forest, its inhabitants and a subtle mystery for 5 years now. In this interview, we find out if a tattoo artist can start doing what she likes right away in her career, if self-education plays a big role and what kind of tattoos people come for most often.
Oh, that’s a very interesting question about the vision of tattooing!
Initially, I came to tattooing because it seemed to me the only way I could realize myself. For a very long time I liked the same themes: animals, skulls, dark woods and their inhabitants, elements that make a picture darker and become a reference to themes of dark magic. So I was interested in drawing and developing in that direction.
I think that when I started I had only a rough guide in which direction I should go.
DO YOU HAVE TATTOOS?
Yes, but only one. I decided not to be petty, so I got one tattoo that takes up about 75% of my left leg. It’s basically about what I like to tattoo myself: it has a skull, bones, a huge snake and a botany. The tattoo was a collaboration between two artists. I really wanted to combine in my tattoo what attracted me to each of their tattoos. And I am very happy with the final result.
In the future I would like to become the owner of two more sleeves, but already from other tattoo artists.
HAVE YOU BEEN TRAINED BY ANY OTHER MASTERS?
Yes, several times. When I was just starting to get into tattooing, I found a tattoo artist who had a similar style to what I wanted to do myself and took a basic tattooing course from her. To this day I think it was a great decision because I am sure I saved myself a huge amount of time and avoided a lot of mistakes, because a practicing tattoo artist can explain you a lot of basic things, show you how to hold your hand and tell you a lot about the technical part of the tattooing process.
A few years later, I took a master class on whipshadowing and dense shading on the skin to improve my technique.
I also took education on social media promotion at different intervals. This, of course, is not directly related to tattooing, but working with social media is an integral part of tattoo artists’ work. In addition, at various times I have studied social media design, advertising, copywriting, psychology, sales, and more. It just seems to me that tattoo artists’ work is not just about being good at drawing and doing interesting and cool projects. It’s wider than that.
WHAT KIND OF TATTOOS DO PEOPLE MOST OFTEN COME TO YOU FOR? IS IT ALWAYS LARGE-SCALE WORK?
Well, it depends on what you mean by scale.
Most often people come to me for tattoos on arms or legs and most of my works are designed for the whole plane of the chosen place. For example, it can be related to the inner part of the forearm, the whole outer part of the shoulder, etc. If we are talking about the thighs, then there are predominantly compositions with a transition from the side of the thigh to the external part of the thigh. Why is it like that? The matter is that for me it is very important not only to realize ideas of my clients, but also to make so that tattoo was proportional to the chosen place and harmoniously entered in a concrete person anatomy.
I consider that a tattoo must be not simply a drawing on the skin, it must be combined with muscles, look well with body movements. That’s why I pay a lot of attention to it.
Maybe I would be glad to do some small tattoos, but they almost never come to me for them. That’s why I try to improve on the bigger projects.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE TYPE OF TATTOO? COULD YOU TELL US A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THAT?
Earlier I already had time to tell about my favorite themes for tattoos, but if you go deeper into the matter… I can single out four main elements that I really like to work with.
1. Strangely enough I like skulls and bones – I really like them and if I had my way I would have added a skull to every tattoo. I don’t even know why I like them so much.
2. I also like to periodically add small symbols. I rarely enough do this and always listen to the person’s wishes (whether she wants to see such elements on herself or not).
3. Another obvious point is botanicals. On the one hand the use of botany is a very cool tool because it helps to fit the tattoo better into the anatomy and can be a cool way to add contrast or can help fill in an empty space. And on the other hand working with botanicals is something like meditating because I really love to paint the leaves. Working with tone, veins, curves…it’s mesmerizing.
4. And in the top, of course, living creatures, because I’m just interested in working with them.
WHICH ARTIST’S TECHNIQUE IS IDEAL FOR YOU?
Hmm, it’s hard to say. I am just first of all attracted by the stylistics in which the tattooist works, the atmosphere of his/her works and secondly the technique of execution. There are some artists, whose works I follow, but in general I think it is useful to analyze your own works from the point of view of composition and technique first of all. It will be much more useful than trying to catch up with someone else’s technique, because you can improve your own.
