Oil pastel style tattoos are nostalgic and childlike. They look like they were hand-drawn with a crayon-style oil pastel, and are a stylish alternative to typical ink.
One of the hottest new tattoo trends of 2023 is “oil pastel” tattoos. It’s different, fun, childlike and looks like it was hand-drawn with a crayon-style oil pastel.
One artist, Dahye Lee, also known as Dareum Tattoo, is a master of the art of the painterly brushstroke tattoo.
With the rise of artsy, hand-drawn and even hand-painted fashion, young brands like SR Studio, Eckhaus Latta and Bode have tapped into our love of hand-painted garments and made them key to their designs. With art world style becoming its own fashion genre, there are brands that capture arty style like a brand called Art Dealer, the handwritten art style of Jim Joe or KidSuper’s recent Paris Fashion Week runway show that was called “a love letter to painting.”
Lee loves using this oil pastel style of tattoo because it’s so drastically different than what’s out there in the tattoo world today, 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.
