How a watercolor turned into a tattoo
Jun 04, 2020
About five years ago I was thinking of a birthday present for my sister's boyfriend of that time, a surf lover that lived in San Diego, in the United States. I had just started out as a watercolor artist and had been painting animals and flowers most of the time. My sister suggested to paint something that was surf related and after some thinking (how do I paint a surfer on a white background?), I came up with the idea of a surfer inside a wave. As I wasn't to sure about the result, I decided to let the idea rest for a while. I did however show my painting to a few people and they were very enthusiastic, so I gave the original painting as a birthday present and I decided to sell reproductions on Etsy. To my surprise it became a very popular watercolor and is still one of my best selling paintings.
Not long after I posted my watercolor in my Etsy shop, I noticed that all of a sudden very similar paintings started to appear on the internet, some of them almost exact copies of my original watercolor. It is something I cannot prevent and in some way I regard it as a great compliment. However It also has a downside: for example I discovered that some people were using an exact copy of my original watercolor painting and selling it as if it was their own. It even ended up on a Hallmark card (on of my biggest dreams) under the name of an other artist. After this was taken of the market, I found out that another company was offering tattoo stickers of my surfer and although I loved the idea of my watercolor ending up as a tattoo, I initially wasn't too happy with that.
After her grandfather past away, she unfortunately lost the painting because all of his books were donated after his death and the painting was probably still inside the book he kept it in. However, she never forgot that drawing. Years later she wanted to have a tattoo that reminded her of her grandfather. She decided to google for watercolor drawings and she feels that her grandfather helped her find my surf painting, since it immediately reminded her of her grandfathers drawing. As I am always very honored when people want my work tattooed on their body I agreed on one condition: I wanted to see a photo of the final result.
A few days later I received a photo and it blew my mind! Not only had she combined two of my surf painting into a beautiful new design, the tattoo was a perfect reproduction of my painting, including water marks and transparency. I honestly never saw such a beautiful watercolor based tattoo in my life!
I love selling on the internet however, because this way people from all over the world can see my artwork and they sometimes contact me with special requests and very personal stories. For instance a while ago I was contacted by a women called Gabriela de Paiva Rio Terra Cassal. She wondered if it was okay to have the green-blue version of the surf painting tattooed on her arm, since my watercolor looked like a similar painting that was done by her grandfather years ago. She told me her grandfather was a very wise and talented man with a strong character and that he loved painting in his spare time and had a big collection of aquarel pencils and books. One day he painted a watercolor of a surfer inside a wave and showed it to her. She fell in love with this painting as soon as she saw it and wanted to have a look at it every time she saw her grandfather. She remembers that because he kept the painting inside one of his books and she was very young at the time, she was not allowed to touch it, only look at it.
After her grandfather past away, she unfortunately lost the painting because all of his books were donated after his death and the painting was probably still inside the book he kept it in. However, she never forgot that drawing. Years later she wanted to have a tattoo that reminded her of her grandfather. She decided to google for watercolor drawings and she feels that her grandfather helped her find my surf painting, since it immediately reminded her of her grandfathers drawing. As I am always very honored when people want my work tattooed on their body I agreed on one condition: I wanted to see a photo of the final result.
A few days later I received a photo and it blew my mind! Not only had she combined two of my surf painting into a beautiful new design, the tattoo was a perfect reproduction of my painting, including water marks and transparency. I honestly never saw such a beautiful watercolor based tattoo in my life!
