+ By Dylan Roche
Walking into any tattoo parlor, one will likely see walls adorned with flash—paper prints of possible tattoos for any customer who doesn’t have a specific design in mind and needs inspiration. The flash designs show off what a tattoo artist can do, reflecting style and skill. After years of being a professional tattoo artist, Brady Duncan has started creating watercolor paintings on wood panels, taking the popular aesthetic of flash design and preserving it as a formal work of art.
“A few years ago, I started painting on these wooden panels with liquid acrylic, with watercolor,” explains Duncan, who in 2024 became a co-owner of Orange Tattoo Company on West Street after working there since 2010. “The wood behaves the same as paper, but it gives it that kind of grittier, antique-y look, especially if it’s varnished or distressed or anything like that.”
Since he started applying this technique on wood, instead of paper, Duncan has painted somewhere between 40 and 50 panels over the last few years. He’s focused on subject matter that appeals to him, initially avoiding commissions, just painting for himself. This mixed-media specialty has given him a welcome return to creative expression, which was such a huge part of his life when he was growing up. After an adolescence steeped in the arts, from painting to music, he knew he had to find something that would actually pay the bills. “There’s the phrase ‘starving artist’ for a reason,” he laughs.
Tattooing was something that would let him use his talents at work while still keeping in touch with the art scene. “It was a way to have the freedom to play music and paint and whatever I wanted—and have an income,” he says.
In a way, tattooing was about marketing himself as an artist. “Back in the day, what set you apart from other shops was the quality of the flash, so you would want these references of tattoo imagery all over the walls of your shop,” he explains. “So, if you weren’t tattooing, you were drawing or painting.”
But he says that painting eventually took a back seat to work, and it wasn’t until a few years ago, as he started on a journey toward sobriety, that he rediscovered his love for it. So much of his life had changed, and he found that he had much more time on his hands. But it wasn’t completely simple, as his artistic lifestyle had always been inextricably connected to partying, whether it was with bandmates or other painters. “I thought I wouldn’t have the same creative drive and the same enthusiasm,” he says, explaining that he had to relearn how to let art and creativity be part of his new life.
With respect to his paintings, Duncan describes his subject matter as approachable, similar to what he might create when he’s tattooing a customer. His work encompasses pinup girls, skulls, masks, and much more. There are homages to the 1940s and 1950s military, as well as snakes and daggers, what he describes as “that traditional tattoo imagery you’d see on old sailors.” He has more creative freedom with his paintings than he does with tattoos, not only because he doesn’t have to please customers but also because “there’s more freedom with a paintbrush than a tattoo machine,” he says.
The work always starts with a central image, just as it would with a tattoo design. As he explains it, a sleeve—a tattoo or series of tattoos that cover a significant portion of an arm—doesn’t just happen, it starts with a focal point and then the details are designed outward around it. If the focal point of one of his paintings is a woman’s face, for example, he might surround her with an ornate background or an elaborate border. He adds these surrounding details to bring the image together.
Once he has it all sketched out and cleaned up—he works with pencil and paper as well as with illustration apps on his iPad that allow him to print it out—he’ll transfer it onto the wood with carbon paper. The first thing he’ll paint is a black outline and shading, followed by color. He’ll finish it up with a coat of urethane to darken it and give it his signature vintage aesthetic. “A lot of it has an old look to it—I’m definitely intentionally trying to make it look older than it is,” he says. “They’re all a little different, and I approach it kind of like tattooing, where I want it to be sellable, but at the same time I’m not making it for anybody, so I can do whatever I want.”
What he appreciates most about these distinctive paintings of his is what he calls “the graphicness of it.” Just as if he was creating a tattoo, he wants it to be simple and readable, something that can be recognized at first glance and even from far away.
Once each painting is finished, he’ll give it the finishing touch of rivets in the corners for hanging it up—a nod to old-school tattoo flash, which can be hung without any matting or framing. (However, Duncan also likes the way they look when they have large frames for dramatic effect.)
For now, Duncan’s work adorns the walls of Orange Tattoo Company, where they hang alongside flash, almost as if they’re a testament to his ever-evolving artistic expression, the two creative ventures he’s come to be known for. Up until now, he’s never formally exhibited—“I’ve been enjoying the process and didn’t want to turn it into a job,” he explains—but he sees the potential to do so, now that he has a body of work to display.
The idea for an exhibition goes beyond making money; it’s about making connections. He sees the thriving arts community in Annapolis, and he wants to network and build connections with fellow creatives in a way that’s different from how he would’ve approached it in the past. “I’m not at the bars every night. I’m not doing what I used to do when I was younger,” he says. “That’s the only way I knew how to network. I see this art community, and I want to get back to going to events.”
