How To Jump Start A Career In Tattoo Art
Tattoo art is a rapidly growing business, and it offers a great way to make money while being creative. However, just because you like to draw doesn’t necessarily mean you can give someone a great tattoo. With a job where you’re permanently marking up a stranger’s skin, there’s no room for error. This means that tattoo artists need to be well trained.
Tattoo artistry normally requires aspiring artists to apprentice with masters of the craft, but a tattoo apprenticeship can be difficult. Finding a mentor can take years all by itself. Actually learning the skills you’ll need to become a tattoo artist can take even more years on top of that. And during this process, there are no formal guarantees that you’ll have a job once you finish—if you finish, that is.
An Alternative to Apprenticeship Programs
The Academy of Responsible Tattooing (A.R.T) believes that there is a different way to train the next generation of tattoo artists, a better and more reliable way than an unstable apprenticeship somewhere. When you’re a tattoo apprentice, there are no guarantees. When you graduate from A.R.T, they make sure you get a job in a professional tattoo shop. They also offer a piercing program for people who want reliable body piercing courses. The goal here is to establish a standard for quality training in these industries.
A.R.T has 4 locations in the United States. You may be looking for a Philadelphia tattoo school or a Jersey City tattoo school. You may be seeking a school for tattooing in Brooklyn or in Los Angeles. If you want to learn how to tattoo in any of these cities, you’re in luck. A.R.T has schools in all of them.
Getting Tattoo Training
A tattoo training school also provides other advantages over a tattoo apprenticeship. You’ll be able to practice extensively with watercolors and color pencils to develop your line work. You’ll be able to develop script and shading techniques on practice pads of varying thickness. And you’ll even be supervised when you begin to tattoo real people.
If you’re doing a tattoo apprenticeship with someone who doesn’t care, they may not be around to give advice on your first few jobs and any mistake could get you fired. But at A.R.T, the instructors are paid to make sure that you learn. Their jobs depend on you getting the right training. Since you’re guaranteed a job when you finish the program, they want to make sure that you become great. Their reputation literally depends on it.
The body piercing courses at A.R.T are similar in terms of value. Like tattoo apprenticeships, a body piercing apprenticeship can require lots of hard work while delivering few results. People in the piercing industry often keep their secrets close, which means you could spend a long time working for someone without learning anything from them. But not at A.R.T.
A.R.T’s body piercing apprenticeship program covers many aspects of the trade, including placement techniques, cross contamination prevention, and a working knowledge of all shop practices. Students will also finish the program with a portfolio of executed piercings. Finally, this program prepares students for the New York State license exam, which is a crucial step for anyone looking for a job in body piercing. Former students and professional body piercers all over the country swear by it.
The Choice is Yours
Some people believe that training for a career in tattoo art or body piercing needs the grit and glamour of learning from a mentor, and there’s certainly no right way to learn an art. As with almost anything creative, the rule of thumb seems to be: if it works for you, it works.
But many people out there seem to have had awful experiences with mentors, wasting massive amounts of time and energy on apprenticeships that went nowhere. If you prefer to learn in a stable environment with strict standards for quality training, then A.R.T may be the right place for you. It’s pretty hard to argue with a place that guarantees you a job once you graduate, especially in today’s market.