Watercolor Tattoos

The Best Watercolor Style Tattoos in San Diego

Watercolor tattoos have risen to become one of the most popular styles tattoos we do here at Funhouse Tattoo in San Diego. Their unique, artistic quality allows them to stand out regardless of their placement. These tattoos utilize vibrant colors and can be used along with other styles to create truly dynamic pieces. If you are interested in getting a watercolor tattoo, then you have come to the right place.

What are Watercolor Tattoos?

As one of the newer styles to join the world of body art, watercolor tattoos imitate the expressive and recognizable characteristics of watercolor paintings. Except they are permanently created on the skin as opposed to being painting on paper. Similar to that of black and grey tattoos, watercolor tattoos designs are done by using a single needle throughout the entire application process. What makes them different is, well, the colors. Bright and vivid colors are distilled with water to make them appear lighter and more natural on the skin. To create darker shades of colors, artists might incorporate white or black ink add different shades to the color tones. This requires careful application since the ink must be injected at a slower pace onto the skin. This helps establish the contrast of colors and brings the vibrant hues to life.

How Do Tattoo Artists Make Watercolor Tattoos?

To capture the natural look of a watercolor painting in a tattoo requires a technique called gradation. This essentially if the use of gradients in the colors to give them the effect they are being mixed with water and absorbed into the paper.

Unlike other tattoo styles, watercolor tattoos often do know have black outlines or utilize heavy dark colors. However, combining watercolor tattoo effects with other designs, such as illustrative for example create truly unique designs. Combining strong black and grey subjects with colorful watercolor designs can create striking contrasts that work cohesively together to form conceptually and visually beautiful tattoos. Through the careful watering down of colors, the artist will bleed, fade, blur, shade and splatter these colors onto the skin just as we do with paper-based art.

How to Take Care of a Watercolor Style Tattoo

Due to the fact that most watercolor tattoos will primarily consist of colors, the thickness of these hues tends to not to last as long as thick, black tints in the traditional tattoos. So, keep in mind that you will need to maintain a watercolor tattoo more frequently than you would with a more traditional style.

Because watercolor tattoos have softer colors and less contrast than other tattoo styles, it is believed that they can fade faster. A big reason why people think this is because the colors aren’t as robust as other kinds of body art, like realism style tattoos for example, and they lose their vibrancy faster because of it.

Although lighter colors can lose their presence over time, the fact of the matter is all tattoos fade over time. Even solid black tattoos.

The key to having a long-lasting watercolor tattoo lies in having a good depth of contrast with the colors. This can add to the structure of the tattoo making it easier to retain its artistic qualities. This will also help give the tattoo better touch-ups down the road if desired.

Watercolor tattoos are relatively new to the world of body art and use both traditional and newly developed techniques to create. Their rise in the tattoo community signifies progression in the range of styles and an evolution of the craft as a whole.

Working With Funhouse Tattoo Shop in San Diego

Its ability to resemble the characteristics of a completely different medium of artwork show the dynamic range artists have and how they are constantly experimenting with new techniques. Working with such a diverse group of people in San Diego has allowed our shop to be at the forefront of the watercolor designs that have quickly become one of our most popular requests.

By having some of the best watercolor tattoo artists in Southern California, we work on designing the most unique and captivating watercolor tattoos. Our artists can even duplicate a watercolor painting. If you are interested in getting a watercolor tattoo, contact us today for a free consultation with one of our world-class artists.