So far, every tattoo I've posted has been created with a 5 round liner and a 9 magnum shader. It's obvious how different sizes will be more fitting for specific areas.
I would have to loved to shade a few of the pieces with smaller grouping. Maybe I'll practice on myself and learn how to shade with my liner.
The hardest part was realizing my ignorance and being around people that don't share it. It's not knowing. Being unaware and uninformed around a group of people who are neither.
Even when the guys would talk to me, it was obvious I couldn't relate. The guys weren't rude. I've heard plenty of apprenticeship stories, and I'm one lucky guy. Rather, when it came to all aspects of tattooing, there was no point in going into detail with me yet.
After learning how to clean a station, I distinctly remember picking up a machine. I had trouble trying to take the needles out so I fiddled with what I know now is the contact point screw. Long story short: don't do that. Now it doesn't make much sense, but when you're in the middle of not knowing much there's a difficult balance between getting your work done efficiently and standing in one spot confused. I've teetered through both and I continue to learn.
So...
What happens when a mistake is made? How about when that mistake slows somebody else down or loses them money? How do you respond to admonition, correction, or even chastisement?
Here's my advice to other apprentices lurking out there. Oh, and don't worry; I'm nobody special so this advice is good old fashioned regurgitation:
Defend yourself by improving yourself.
And there you have it. Words are cheap, right? If you know who you are and truly seek to improve, doing so is the answer.
The client wanted a pretty, feminine version of Mary. She had seen a piece Kat Von D did, which almost had a smooth, Latin feel and she loved it. So with that in her head, she looked around and found a cool Mary online. My goal was take the one she found and smooth it out to fit the look that was in her head. Not like a portrait, but stylized.
I came at this thing with five washes and just a hint of black. Also, an ink cap of distilled water to mix between.
I've now been tattooing short of seven months. Here are some more skills I am noticing:
1. I finally feel comfortable lining. But I have yet to feel comfortable continuing a line over four inches.
2. A seven round is great. The guys compare it to driving a 4x4. (I've been using a 5 for half a year).
3. My left hand is way more sensitive to the vibration of the needle going in the skin. I'm almost feel like if I have any doubts of needle depth, I could close my eyes - but, obviously, that won't happen.
4. Listening to the altered sound my machine makes when it goes into the skin (resistance) is also a great indicator.
5. The strength in my right hand has doubled.
6. Some color ink washes require more drops of ink than what you're used to with a standard grey wash. And when doing tribal, plasma will slowly dilute your pure black (thanks Big G).
7. I need to fully embrace the concept of warm and cool colors.
9. I'm beginning to know, from all angles, where my shader (9 mag) will leave ink. I can't get exactly up to the line every single time, but 70% of the time I can.
10. The smell of your hands after working with your machine is manly.
11. I find myself concentrating on equal depth, steady circles, and even placement when applying a light wash.
12. When the guys in the shop talk about needle grouping, I actually know what they're talking about.
13. I completely skipped number 8.
I scour the internet for inspiration, resources, and eye candy. The last few hours I've been looking for faces rendered with color. I just wanted a couple of good examples. It turns out I was inundated with some of the most beautiful works of art I've seen in years. Lovely pieces that capture moments of beauty, expression, horror, humor, grace, form and craftsmanship. And these are just faces. All of which are walking around as a visual experience on someone's body.
Here's a small sampling, see for yourself:
This may be an obvious observation, but I don't care. Something amazing, a renaissance of sorts, has been taking place. (You know, "renaissance"... it's Algonquin for "the good land") Oh, and I'm not referring to some "vogue of counter culture" in which having a tattoo is more commonplace. Nope. I'm talking a concerted effort of artistic growth and skill. Artists pushing themselves further and further.
Clearly, something like this is birthed from a strong history (tattooing goes back how many years?) and will continue on whatever course it decides. I'm just excited to be able to see the progress. If this is early renaissance, I can't wait to see what the high renaissance will bring.
Artists:
01 - Jeff Ensminger : jeffensminger.com
02 - Joshua Carlton : joshuacarlton.com or on MySpace
03 - Nate Beavers : natebeavers.com or on MySpace
04 - Correction: Nikko on Kyle Cotterman on MySpace.
05 - Sean Herman : seanherman.com
06 - Monte Agee : montetattoo.com or on MySpace
07 - Nikko : ignitiontattoo.com or on MySpace
08 - Mike De Masi on MySpace
Last October (2006), Guy Aitchison and Markus Lenhard collaborated on a tattoo. Markus just recently posted two wonderful videos of their work on YouTube.
The first highlights the initial planning and drawing stages:
The second goes straight into tattooing: the "Executive Stage".
I look forward to seeing more after the second session this May (2007).
A client walked in ready to get a tattoo. She was once a guinea pig for my fifth tattoo. She loves it and is now a paying customer.
Her father just passed away and she wanted an "In Loving Memory" tattoo. Having already spent a good amount of time with her husband piecing the layout together, she handed me a print out and we scheduled an appointment.
Here's the original:
My instructions were precise. The "57 Heaven" lettering was to be the same - she loved the coloring in the letters. The car was to be red, the halo yellow and the wings the same.
Here's the outline:
Also, her dad named his car "Lucy" so she wanted it on the license plate. I was a bit hesitant seeing how small the area was. But after condensing the text, I went in trying to pull it off. I told her straight out that if it looked sloppy or blending together odd, I would simply fill in the plate black.
After it was okayed, we sat for a few hours and finished the piece.
Would I have loved to thrown in some background and went all out with some negative lettering? Sure. Did it cross my mind to add more road to fade out and create a scene in the distance? Yep. Or what about making the car look more realistic, with more dimensional shadows? I thought about it.
But finding a balance between what your customer wants and what you'd like to do isn't always a good thing. The effort she put into it before hand mixed with my effort to render her memorial tattoo was exactly what she wanted.
Today I completed the outline for The Nightmare Before Christmas arm (wrist to elbow). Then I jumped into shading... I've much to finish, but I wanted to share some progress shots of Jack Skellington and Zero.
Zero is a ghost - you know, of a dead dog, so I'm trying to figure out a way (before next session) to make him slightly transparent and still fade out Jack behind him.
I ran my first 5k this morning with Drew (mentor) and I'm dead as this is being typed. It was cold, freezing, uphill on a snowy trail. I'm sore already. And now I've got material to work with for telling my boy stories. You know, the whole walk for miles, uphill in the snow thing.
Then, to top it off, I had my first experience of tattooing all day. I was working on a themed (The Nightmare Before Christmas) forearm piece for a little more than six hours. Four glasses of water, three breaks, two tofu hot dogs, and one cramped and locked up thumb... for good measure.
It was the best! I can't imagine how mentally draining it must be to tattoo all day, every day.
