The World Tattoo

While sitting in the Pirate Bar in Utila Honduras waiting for the World Cup to begin, I quickly noticed a girl, Jules, who I had met earlier in Antigua. After speaking for a moment she quickly turned around to speak to someone else and that is when I noticed it, a tattoo outline of the world. I, along with many other backpackers, quickly told her how awesome it looked. She also said that she planned putting a red dot on all the places she has traveled. While sitting at the table looking almost hypnotically looking at her tattoo every time her back was facing me, I realized that I had finally gotten the inspiration for the "travel" tattoo that I had been thinking about since my trip to Thailand. She told me that she had gotten the tattoo from Mike at Tattoo Antigua in Antigua, Guatemala. I realized that if I was going to do that it would have to be a tattoo of the entire World including the specific countries. I also knew that I would like to color in each of the countries that I had traveled to. I went back to Antigua and got the outline of the world done by Mike and then got the countries colored in by Jake of Natural Mystic Tattoo in Pineville, Louisiana. The following pictures are of my initial tattoo and the progression of coloring in the countries. 40 counties so far with hopefully many more to follow.

Source: http://billpassmanworldtattoo.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-world-tattoo.html

Artwork from IB Art (2007-2008)

The IB HL Art projects called for creative application of your own personal and cultural background. Obviously, I was spoiled for choice when it came to deciding which things would represent my origins and upbringing. 

The Fire Eater chalk pastel | acrylic paint | wood

The Fire Eater was meant to represent Sri Lanka, the Perahera in particular. The reference photo was a fire eater I photographed in action at the Singapore zoo. It was also my first go at using chalk pastels, and marked my discovery of Degas and Cassatt. 

Mum and Me chalk pastel | paper

Growing comfort with the medium coupled with continued admiration for Cassatt's work (delicate pastel paintings of mums, babies and kittens) inspired me to follow this up with the portrait of my mother and baby me. The photos used for reference were taken by dad in England. After the IB exhibition in April, I gifted it to mum for her birthday.

The Steel Drummer linocut | paper

The Steel Drummer print, together with a paper clay sculpture of a female carnival dancer (not pictured) represented Trinidad, through calypso music and the Trinidad carnival. I used my classmate Louis as reference.