“Oil pastel” tattoos are one of the hottest new tattoo trends for 2023. It’s unique, lively, and childlike, and it appears to have been hand-drawn using a crayon-style oil pastel.
Dahye Lee, better known as Dareum Tattoo, is a master of the impressionistic brushstroke tattoo style.
With the emergence of artsy, hand-drawn, and even hand-painted fashion, emerging brands such as SR Studio, Eckhaus Latta, and Bode have capitalized on our fondness for hand-painted garments and made them central to their designs. With art world style becoming its own fashion genre, there are businesses that encapsulate it, such as Art Dealer, Jim Joe’s handwritten art style, or KidSuper’s recent Paris Fashion Week runway show dubbed “a love letter to painting.”
Dareum Tattoo’s oil pastel tattoo of roses and daisies in a vase.
TATTOO DAREUM
Lee like using this oil pastel style of tattoo since it is so distinct from what is available in the tattoo market today, which ranges from hand poke stippled tattoos to medieval and emojis.
“There are so many different styles of tattoos right now, but my specific drawing-style of ink was not common when I first started,” she said. “I wanted to fuse together my paintings into tattoos, and I fell in love with oil pastels because I used various hand painting materials.”
In a time when iPad made artworks and digital design prevails in the tattoo world, Lee’s painterly style is old school. Among her favorite artists, Lee loves the artwork of artists who used their hand-drawn style to define their own work, like Henri Matisse and Claude Monet. “I often refer to the colors in their paintings. As a Korean artist, I also love the paintings of Kim Hwan-ki, whose exhibition I recently went to see, and loved.”
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Her process begins with putting oil pastel to paper, which details her own style of flower designs. She then replicates this painterly, gestural Crayola crayon-esque style into ink, as a template for a tattoo.
“I love drawing using pencils, colored pencils, crayons, and oil pastels from the beginning of the tattoo,” said Lee. “The hand-painted design is transferred to my client’s skin, and we make sure that we’re on the same page.”
A recurring theme in her tattoos, and drawings, are flowers. While it might sound cliché, offline, still life flowers are the best way to capture the essence of their true form. “I actually like to draw them straight from nature,” said Lee. “Various colors and shapes always give me fun when I draw, and I think it’s because of the influence of my favorite artists.”
Dareum Tattoo’s oil pastel tattoo of flowers next to the oil pastel drawing on which it is based.
TATTOO DAREUM
Seoul-based Lee began tattooing in 2018. She previously studied visual design at university, with a minor in fashion design. She has been painting since she was a child, but she never intended to become a tattoo artist. Her big, childlike brushstroke happened by chance.
Her hand-drawn tattoo style depicts flowers in simple forms such as roses, water lilies, and daisies. “I tend to save and draw pretty flower pictures that I encounter on Instagram or everyday life,” Lee told me, “so there are times when I draw flowers that I don’t know their names, or I make up my own.”
An oil pastel tattoo of tulips by Dareum Tattoo
DAREUM TATTOO
Since she started using oil pastel as a child, Lee kept them around when she was a teenager and now, as an adult. “Everyone has used oil pastels or crayons to draw at least once in their lives,” she says.
“It’s nostalgic, it brings back memories. It’s such an easy-to-access, low-pressure tool. It’s something lighthearted and fun, and something I’m able to incorporate into tattoos.”
Water lily tattoos by Dareum Tattoo
DAREUM TATTOO
An oil pastel tattoo of an iris in a vase by Dareum Tattoo
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