Madame Boucard Tattoo – Art Déco Portrait Inspired by Tamara de Lempicka

Hello everyone!

There are projects that I want to get tattooed on my body even before I know who they will end up with. Madame Boucard, The painting by Tamara de Lempicka was one of them.

I had already worked this image on synthetic leather and I knew that I wanted to see it one day on a real arm. I really like this painting: the gaze, the posture, the way Lempicka makes her women very present without having to overdo it.

A project that I really wanted to realize

Basically, it wasn’t a commission. It was just a drawing that I wanted to get tattooed because I wanted to see how this image would work on the volume of the arm.

Then Margot wrote to me. I had already gotten a tattoo of it, and over time it became a friend. She liked the project, she talked about it, and we decided to do it.

The detail I wasn’t expecting at all

During the session, Margot told me that her mother had herself reproduced Madame Boucard in painting. And here, of course, the project took on a different dimension.

This image that I had chosen almost selfishly because I wanted to get it tattooed ended up being connected to her family history. It’s exactly the kind of coincidence I love in this profession.

Adapting a painting to the arm

I wanted to remain very faithful to the work, so the real work mainly involved the placement, scale, and the way the image is brought to life on a arm that rotates, moves, and changes depending on the position.

A painting is conceived on a flat surface. An arm, of course, not. So one must find the right angle, avoid losing details in the turning areas, and maintain sufficient breathing so that the portrait remains legible over time.

That’s also what I like about projects inspired by painting: you don’t just copy an image; you really have to make it work on the body.

A project that continued well after this first piece

Madame Boucard eventually became the starting point for a much more complete project around Tamara de Lempicka. One piece called out to another, then another, until something much more coherent was built on the entire arm.

I told the rest of the story in my article on The full arm inspired by Tamara de Lempicka.