Abstract

On YokoFolio, pick the style Abstract and then your city, and widen the radius if you need to. Here the rule for choosing is different from every other style: you're not picking a drawing, you're picking a hand. Look at the portfolio as a whole and ask yourself whether you like all of it, because you'll be handing that person the composition. Check too that there are real masses and real contrast — that's what will hold over time — and look for healed photos, where you can see how light washes and thin marks have aged. Ask the artist how they work: whether they draw on paper first or directly on your body, and how much say you keep over the result.

Intentions rather than designs: a trail of smoke, a flow crossing an arm, a phoenix taking off reduced to a few strokes, an ink mark, free lines following a shoulder. Bring your artist a feeling, a palette, an area of the body and work of theirs that speaks to you, rather than a reference image. Plenty of them compose directly on the skin with a marker: accept that bit of the unknown, it's what the style asks for. You can also choose how far to go: pure shapes with no subject at all, or a subject dissolving into strokes, which keeps a trace of meaning. Black alone gives a graphic, durable piece; color brings fields and splashes that need strong contrast to last.

On a surface that lets the gesture open out: the back, the flank, the thigh, the full arm, the shoulder blade. Take the time to look at the area in motion before you decide — a layout that looks right with the arm extended can break when the arm bends. Above all, don't box it into a small square: shrunk down, a gesture is just a mark with no intention behind it. Abstract also suits cover-ups and scarred areas, because the composition can be built around whatever is already there. For a cover-up, show the artist the old tattoo from the first conversation: its darkest areas decide which shapes and colors can go over it.

Watercolor looks painted with water: translucent washes, soft bleeding edges, runs and splashes, usually around a recognizable subject such as a bird or a flower. Abstract has no subject to name, or lets it dissolve, and isn't tied to that paint texture: its marks can be hard strokes, solid black masses, lines or flat color fields. Trash Polka always contains realistic black and grey fragments — a face, an eye, a clock — torn up by red strokes and lettering, on a palette locked to black and red; Abstract has no photo-like element and uses any palette. If there's nothing to recognize and the strokes, shapes and masses are the whole design, it's Abstract.