What I learnt at Shane O’Neill’s seminar in Avignon

Hello everyone!

I grew up crossing paths with a lot of tattoo artists, sometimes without realizing immediately who they really were in the industry. Shane O’Neill is one of those people. He is a long-time friend of my father’s, so I had already crossed paths with him at conventions in France and the United States long before I participated in his seminar at Graphicaderme in Avignon.

We even went to his studio Inkfamous in Delaware when he invited us over. At the time, all of this seemed almost normal to me. In retrospect, of course, I realize that it wasn’t exactly the everyday life of everyone.

Two days around the realistic portrait

The seminar was organized as part of Tatouage & Partage and revolved mainly around realistic portraiture. There was a more technical part, then a practical part involving the creation of a live portrait.

What I like about this kind of day is that you see much more than the final result. You look at the preparation of the sketch, the choice of materials, the way the contrasts are placed, the order in which the areas are worked on, and all the small adjustments that you never see in an Instagram photo.

Watching someone work teaches a lot

You can know all the theory of the world, but watching a person make decisions in real time is very different. You understand why they start in one area, why they simplify a detail, or why they push a contrast in a specific place.

And above all, it reminds us that realism doesn’t just consist of piling on as many details as possible. There must be a real hierarchy in the image; otherwise everything ends up having the same importance.

Several tattoo artists, several ways of thinking about the same subject

Other artists also participated in the seminar, including Manu Badet and Julien Thibers. I found it interesting to see several approaches to portraiture and realism, because you can achieve completely different results while working on the same type of subject.

What I have mostly kept

Returning to the construction before rushing into the details. That’s probably what has remained with me the most.

Over time, I realize that that’s exactly what I’m looking for in my own tattoos: a clear structure, well-placed contrasts, and an image that works before we even start adding all the little details.

This is a logic that I developed later in my Art Nouveau projects and that I explain more specifically in my article on my way of constructing a composition.