31-year-old tattoo artist Katie Shocrylas tattoos out of a private studio in Vancouver, BC, Canada and creates mesmerising and bright tattoos inspired by the beauty of nature. We chatted to Katie to find out more about her distinctive style and what drew her to the tattoo world…
Photo taken by rolydee.com
How long have you been tattooing? I have been tattooing full-time for about four years.
How did you start? What did you do before? I became fascinated with tattooing about a year after finishing art school, while I was travelling and started getting tattooed myself. After my apprenticeship I ended up going back to school for art therapy; I took a bit of a roundabout route but ultimately found my way back to tattooing and haven’t stopped since. Now, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
I did a lot of different things before I got into tattooing: I spent four years completing a Bachelor of Fine Art degree, a year travelling in New Zealand, and in the time between then and the beginning of my tattoo career had a variety of different jobs in the service industry. My apologies to anyone who got me as a server, I was always terrible at waiting tables and serving drinks!
Do you have a background in art? I have always drawn and painted, and have an undergraduate degree in visual art specialising in mixed media figure drawing and painting. I also danced semi- professionally until I was 18.
What drew you to the tattoo world? I have always loved the fact that tattooing allows you to make one-on-one connections with other people through images. I think it’s a really unique way to make even just a small difference in someone else’s life, and being able to learn a little bit about their experiences by creating a piece of really personal artwork for them. I am drawn to the directness of drawing directly onto someone’s body; tattoos are aesthetic and I love that they’re a way for people to adorn their skin with images they find beautiful and/or significant – I see tattoos as a movement towards self love and often acceptance and healing. Also, it’s really, really fun and super rewarding to be able to make art for people every day!
How would you describe your style, how has it changed? I always have a hard time describing my style but I suppose I would say I do illustrative, vibrant, somewhat neo-traditional and mostly animal-based tattoos. Over the past few years, I feel my work has become a little freer and more whimsical – my line work has definitely evolved to have a bit more of a sense of naturalism to it. Also, I find myself working with bright colour schemes in a way that combines black and neutral tones to contrast the hyper-vibrant rainbow palettes I love so much. I think my sense of colour is becoming more refined and I’m really enjoying the depth that results from that.
What do you like to tattoo and draw? Animals! Crystals! Anything that grows in nature. I love doing pet portraits, anything magical or whimsical, food tattoos are really fun (fruits and veggies and anything sweet), patterns, ornamentation, anything that combines the real world with an imagined world.
What inspires you? I am inspired by nature, pop culture (especially anything from the 80s), travel, and lots of other artists (tattoo and otherwise, both past and contemporary).
What would you love to tattoo? I really want to do more pop culture tattoos – think X Files, drag queens, iconic musicians, 80s inspired imagery. I’d also love to do more insects, snakes, and exotic as well as mythological animals. I really want to tattoo a zebra, if anyone’s keen!
Do you have any guest spot or conventions planned? I’ll be part of Art Basel again this December with my lovely sponsors Hush Anesthetics! Otherwise I am going to be primarily in Vancouver for the remainder of 2016 as I’ve been on the road a lot this past year and am looking forward to a few months at home. However, I am in the beginning stages of planning some North American and UK guest spots for 2017. I am also planning on heading back to Brighton for the convention in 2017, I was part of the convention this year and had a blast.
Can you tell us about your own tattoos? Half of the tattoos on my arms are cover ups, and my favourite tattoos rarely see the light of day – I’ve got a little collection of animals on my legs (a horse, toucan, squirrel, puppy, kittens – still lots of space on my one leg to fill with more creatures!) Steve Moore is doing a full backpiece for me, we’re two sessions in, I’m pretty excited about that as his work has inspired me since before I even started tattooing.
Iv followed alot of her work for the past few years ! Tho she has great results in colors,iv seem no progression in style” she seems to typically focus her work to on limited areas of the body ((forearm,,calf area” upper arm,, upper back shoulder)) alll easy areas of the body to tat , colors always pop well on those areas (if your B- level artist or better) and if you study her work, her designs typically stay to small tight configuration (basically her coloring stays in small areas within the line work!((much easier to get bold bright colors to pop)) Tats seems to stay contained in size from an an average of 4 to 6 inchs((speeds a money maker,so the smaller the tat the faster its done (the more $$you make per day!!! I worked at the jade dragon in chicago for 2 years””my first 8 months there i was handed all the smaller tats (4to6 in) and i was putting out 6 or 7 a day with much more variety ,detail ect. I”d expect to see a wider margine of growth with all of her art background&years of tattooing ((check out her web posts of tattoo pics,youll see what i mean im sure!! .Her designs are focused mainly on animation, with a small span of variety ((animated kitty cats&little dogs, ice cream cones,,lolly pops&hot air balloons?? Cute;) but there is seldom any realism to her tattooing based off all the 1000s of pics shes posted over the years!! Iv been tattooing for 14years,, iv drawn freehand for decades ((tho iv stepped away from it several times for several reasons& one reason was more times than not was so i could put more thought and effort into changing my style of art ,which always reflected in my tattoing so inshort “iam not just a one dementional artist and yes””thats been a challange, frustrating &at times disappointing,,but practice&time can have a big pay off ,you just have to want it bad enough,try hard,be open minded to change&strive to get better!! As an artist&tattoo artist ,my personal opinion of katie is that she is highly over rated,, maybe she gets all the glam because she’s a female artist,or maybe Canada just doesnt have alot to offer for tattoo artist,but ‘v seen countless young female artists here in the states that have a much wider variety of art to bring to the table &they keep advancing foward and are by far one dementional artists..I understand having a certain style,but i also understand being limited in margine of art skills &for me as an artist being one dementional has never been exceptable.From a business prospective,i understand getting it while you can,but i also understand that eventually someone with more talent will come out of nowhere&put you in your place!! Katies a good tattoo artist, but in my opinion highly over rated &it leaves me to wonder what they teach in collage art in Canada &i say this based on what she shows on the internet!! Lolli pops,animated lil doggys ,kittys, cookies, popsicle’s ,cupcakes, 1970s pop culture flowers ,unicorns &alot of work that resembles the doileys my great grandma used to croshae to set out on her endtables,and shes been doing it and gettn by on it for how long now?? Congrats tho for making that work for you but speaking for myself ,i have to wonder how she really feels about herself as an artist when shes see’s all the other highly rated tattoo artists putting out mind blowing work in so many differnt styles of tattooing !! Just one persons opinion tho ((but then again ,iv heard many many artists voice the same!! Good day 🙂