Amanda Graves owns Dark Arts Tattoo Studio with her husband, Corey Graves. Amanda works on a tattoo that inlcudes her glitter tattoo technique she developed in 2022.
Lloyd Fox/The Baltimore Sun/TNS
BALTIMORE — On Instagram and TikTok, Amanda Graves’ tattoos sparkle. And yet there’s no real glitter involved — just a dizzying number of tiny dots, an array of “all sorts of colors” applied with fine needles.
When Graves started sharing her “glitter tattoo” technique on social media a few years ago, “it just blew up,” she said.
A tattoo artist for nearly a decade, Graves opened her own Bel Air, Maryland, shop, Dark Arts Tattoo Studio, with her husband, Corey Graves, in January 2020. After closing and then eventually reopening the studio during the coronavirus pandemic, she feared it was “the end of tattooing.” But Dark Arts came back even stronger than before.
The idea for Graves’ signature technique was sparked, she said, by a desire to recreate the effect of her daughter’s glittery competitive cheer makeup in tattoo form.
“I was scouring the internet, trying to see if anyone had done something like this before, and I could not find it for the life of me,” Graves, 33, said. “Did I actually create something that hasn’t been done in this industry? That’s always been something I wanted to do.”
Now, “people call the shop and ask if it’s the glitter shop,” she added — and travel from across the country to Harford County to get glitter tattoos.
“Her glitter tattoo’s something that I’ve never seen before. I just couldn’t get enough of ‘em,” said Hope Smith, who discovered Graves on social media last year.
In December, she drove with her husband from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Maryland to finally get one herself.
The tattoo — an approximately 8-inch design on her right upper thigh of Dopey from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” — is an homage to Smith’s nickname, “Hopey Dopey.” She said the hours-long process was more comfortable than other tattoo experiences she’d had before.
“It was literally like butterflies were licking me,” Smith, 46, said. “There was no pain whatsoever.”
To mimic the visual effect of glitter, Graves employs a technique called pointillism, layering white dots atop dots of other colors. Instead of regular tattoo needles, she uses permanent makeup tattoo needles.
Civonna Saunders, a tattoo artist at Dark Arts, had attempted the technique after watching one of Graves’ YouTube videos before working at her studio, she said. Around the end of 2023, she learned from Graves in person.
“It’s a little bit more tedious. It takes a lot more time than what I originally thought,” Saunders, 25, said. “You have to persevere and stay focused throughout it.”
Graves said for her, it’s become “brainless.”
Some customers come in thinking there’s glitter in the ink, Saunders said, adding that the finished result “makes you smile and it makes you happy.”
Dark Arts has a “family dynamic,” said Saunders, who spends time there even when she doesn’t have a tattoo appointment on the books.
“I want people and clients to come in here and not feel like they’re walking into a place of tension or judgment or gatekeeping,” Graves said. “You’re getting a tattoo on your body forever and you’re going to be sitting with that person in an intimate setting for hours on end. You should feel comfortable.”
