Switching it up!

Hello folks! I have to switch up how Ive been working with this blog. I haven't meant to disappoint you all by not regularly posting. I will continue to post as frequently as possible but I have to make some changes......Usually I come home from work and post... BUT there have been days where I have been getting home late, and have been WAY too exhausted to even think of posting! Also I have been having some house guests staying with me which has made it a little hard to camp out in front of the computer to write!

My plan of action is to post the highlights of the previous day in the morning...after coffee and after my mind has cleared a bit. Thank you all for being so patient!

That being said...The line art piece above I need to tell you the specifics of this piece. This was a drawing the customer brought in to me and wanted the piece EXACTLY as she had drawn it.....soooo........that's exactly what she got! enough said!

The second piece tribal with scorpion was done for a customer who I haven't seen in a couple of years and chose this piece online to be done on his forearm. His wife will be coming in a few days to get a Scorpio piece as well. Both of them share the same astrological sign and decided to get pieces to symbolize their union as well as their collective signs.

Tattoos I did today

We finally finished! The black and grey sugar skull piece is finished and I'm really siked about it! Although I will miss my customer coming in too see me so often!

The cancer ribbon butterfly was done on a woman who is a breast cancer survivor and went through a double mastectomy. She is writing a book about her experience with cancer and I am really looking forward to reading it when its complete.

We spoke of how... after battling cancer, survivors are so quick to run out and "mark" their bodies with tattoos about the cancer. My thoughts to this are, the act of getting the cancer tattoo is something positive a survivor can do to their bodies which is completely within their control. This is so unlike the multiple procedures endured by the patient which are completely out of their control for so long. I believe the tattoo is so significant because it is the act of being able to finally take back this much needed control or their body!

Tattoos I did today

The cross piece Was actually a coverup of an old Aerosmith tattoo which had been done in all purple ink. This made it a super easy coverup because not only did she choose an image which had a lot of detail, but the lack of any black in the original made for an easy disguise!

The black and grey piece was the son of a friend of my husband. Yup... you heard me right...the SON of a friend of my husband! Sigh.....when people in my age group have children who are old enough to get tattooed its always a little shocking to me that its even possible that could even happen...aren't I still 25?

Tattoos I did today

Happy fathers day to all the dads out there!

Today we had a group of 10 in. we split them up between all the artists and the ones above are the ones I did for the group. The black and grey cross and the roman numerals with the flowers were both first timers to the tattoo experience. Hopefully I didn’t traumatize them forever not so much with my tattooing but my bad humor!

The piece above was a small addition to some text she already had. She intends to add some lettering to her other shoulder, and add a bunch of flowers to the entire top of her back similar to the ones I did today. An ambitious project but she will be working on it little by little.

Tattoos I did today

Today we are minus one piece for the day. I worked late tonight and we were unable to finish the piece we had started so I opted to wait until we were finished to take the picture. Also the customer was unhappy with the fact we were unable to finish sooo I though asking for a photo was asking too much!

The Disney winter piece was a fun piece on a mandrake frequent flyer who likes to get these pieces for her grandkids (actually she is a HUGE disney fan as well). This was a fun piece I hope we are able to add to someday…im my head im picturing snowflakes EVERYWHERE!

The fairy piece is TINY. Not many people know that Really small pieces with a lot of detail take a long time and are extremely difficult to execute. I tried to put as much detail into this piece as possible despite its tiny size.

Tattoos I did today

I apologise….I know Ive been gone a couple of days. Usually this time of year I suffer from burnout/malaise and I need to recharge so please try to bear with me!

The first two pieces with the cancer ribbon and the double “L” pieces were on two ladies who lost a friend to leukemia this past fall and wanted to memorialize her as she was a treasured friend to the two of them.

The rose piece was a recolor of an older piece (which I didn't photograph). The Piece was too dark and lacked depth that fortunately the color was able to bring out again!

The carrot/skull piece belongs to our very own shop manager Laura…Not this had been done a while ago and I did not take a picture of the piece and forgot about it until today…..Because the temperature hit 90, and she was wearing shorts and it was peeking out so I was like “whoa, I forgot all about that one” and HAD to take a picture!

Finally the fairy was artwork created by the customer on her computer and she wanted to have it tattooed on her.

Tattoos I did today

An eventful day. Yes we see her again...the sugar skull piece is almost done! Only the inside of the arm is left to complete and I am so excited. My customer soon will be leaving for photography school and I will be so sad to see her go!

The USMC piece was the first piece on a young man who enlisted in the marines. He tell me the new guidelines for the marines is no more than 4 tattoos to be accepted in to the marine corps. I have to say I FULLY support our soldiers and thanked him for protecting my freedom...which allows me to keep tattooing in this incredible country!

I also tried to catch up on drawings for the week and after being goaded a little by Tom...finally booked some time for myself to have my back piece worked on.

Tattoos I did today

No you eyes do not deceive you….and I did not make a mistake and upload three of the same pictures. Today I did three of the same tattoos on three brothers to memorialize their father. The patriots piece was done on a friend of the family who had come with them. I was deeply honored that they chose me to do this piece for them as they had been looking for the right person to do the piece for a while. Their father had many tattoos and was in the navy so they thought it was appropriate to memorialize him in this manner. It was a fun group to work on and we shared many laughs.

Tattoos I did today

Today was A fun day. I know all of you have been watching the progression of this koi piece… today we finally finished! I know this customer intends to build up his arm to create a full sleeve and I am super excited to work on the rest of it!

The fairy was done for a customer who has been waiting 10 years to get this piece. She wanted the fairy created in the likeness of her daughter and had given me a portrait to work from. I had a lot of fun working on this one as well and was super complimented this customer chose me to do the piece! I will also be looking forward to doing more work on her!

Shallow

Ok . . . maybe im a bit shallow. Ill stand up and admit it! Although some of my tattoos I got with a particular meaning behind them, the majority of my tattoos I have gotten SHEERLY for their beauty. I don’t think this makes me less of a collector . . . Just one who loves the beauty of how tattoo patterns look on the skin, and visually shape the body. Maybe that IS the meaning, plain, aesthetic appeal. I often hear tattoo enthusiasts slighting other tattoo collectors for getting tattoos with no personal meaning. I would argue that the sheer act of getting tattooed CREATES the meaning. Even if a client decides to get a dot put on them, the mere act of getting that dot becomes so profound that they will remember the exact circumstance in which they got the dot, who was present, how old they were and what was going on in their lives when they got this dot. This is an example of the act of getting tattooed CREATING meaning. On the other hand I have spent years thinking of the perfect tattoo to represent something in my life. I think what I am trying to get across is that its ok to either get a tattoo filled with personal meaning or let the act of the tattoo create the meaning. It’s just important to GET tattooed

Tattoos I did today

Sigh......yep.....today was one of THOSE days. I had scheduled a couple of appointments today on my day off because I knew they didn’t want to wait as Im pretty booked up. Well they mistook the time of the appointment so we had to reschedule it anyway. In the meantime a longstanding customer of mine who is battling cancer came in for a little sumthin sumthin. He got the rose memorial piece that is above for his wife and daughter (who passed when she was 4). It makes me sad for him because I see how much pain he is in and im not speaking of the tattoo.
The second piece was an addition the kanji character on the shoulder. I tink it added a feminine touch to the piece!
I also spent part of the day dealing with customer issues which is always a bummer!
MEH!

Tattoos I did today

Well actually I only worked on the waves today…All the other work is some oldies but goodies on a client I worked on today.

The waves is on the customer who has the octopus sleeve started by another artist I have been “renovating”. We are slowly but surely working our way to the top and close to finishing! Then it will be on to the back. I am secretly hoping that He will want a body suit……A girl can dream cant she?

All the other pieces are on one client who has many projects going on at once. I have been meaning to get some good pictures of what Ive done and either I don’t get a good shot or it changes so much by the time we are done. Ironically though I actually worked on him for about three hours today and didn’t even photograph what we ACTUALLY worked on! Go figure!

Tattoos I did today

Today I completed this 1/4 sleeve I had started a few weeks ago. This client is a rare treat because she has the best of all worlds . . . Great skin, loves color, literally lets me freehand all her work (she has many tattoos by me), has the most amazing cool attitude, AND sits like a champ! What mor could a girl ask for?
We work with color a little different on her than I normally would in that I do not have any black in the entire piece. All shading is done with color which gives it a more of a watercolor feel. I thing though that the punchy contrasting colors give it a little more OOMPH though.
The rest of the day was spent playing catchup and doing many..many consults.

Afterglow

I apologize to all my faithful readers for the break this past week. I have been on vacation and instead of basking in the afterglow of a relaxing vacation . . . I am reeling in the aftershock of arduous physical labor (NOT my forte). After a week of home renovation I sure am ready to slip on my comfy tattoo shop back on! So Today, the last day of vacation, I have been working on getting my “game face” back on.

I will be working on a few projects on myself this summer. I have started a half back piece from Thomas Harris (our newest artist) and although the line work and black and grey is finished, we are going full crazy color bomb on it! Color work is mostly new for me to be wearing as I have always gotten black and grey but I have what I like to call “lucky skin” and take color really well. I learned this when I got my first color piece by Rob Anastasia, another one of our artists. I am really looking forward to finishing this and . . . well . . . who knows, maybe it’ll end up a full sized coloring book?

In addition to this I have some ideas for behind my ears and along my hairline, as well as finally finishing the bottom halves of my arms. Looks like I will have a super busy summer ahead of me!