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!

Tattoos I did today

Well Today was supposed to be the start of my vacation. But Those who know me know how hard it is for me (the workaholic) to be away from the shop. I already knew I had to come in to do payroll this morning…people have a tendency to get a little pissed when not payed. Also I had that weird scheduling mixup saturday night and had to move the last customer of the day to today. I have to say not only was she super understanding about the mishap…she was also a GREAT customer to work on. It sure made coming in not too bad on this beautiful holiday!

The names in the piece are her childern’s names and she had been waiting to get the right tattoo for a long time, after countless searches she happened to see a design similar to this online. I “tweaked” it for her so it better fit her shape and added the names.

U.S. President James Polk is said to be the first white man to have a Chinese character as a tattoo.