I've had folks question me and my tattooing directly; right in the middle of the process. I know how it'll turn out in my head - well, at least close, but I don't express that. I just tattoo.

So I've tried to pay attention to two different scenarios that have been playing out lately.

Once a threshold of mental pain management is reached, some people get overwhelmed and get cranky. They doubt with facial expressions and some even out loud. Some dislike things they were in love with an hour before. Others turn blank and won't respond. It's simply a matter of dealing with the pain.

Then there are people with straight up negative tendencies. Those of which seem to either immediately express doubt and concern to allay nerves. Or those who were nervous, and seemingly positive, that then find themselves coping through the nerves and back to normal: back to those negative tendencies. (this usually takes place about 15 minutes into a tattoo with me).

Both are natural human reactions. Although one more than the other; the second seems to require conditioning. And, of which, it's not my place to pass judgment. In fact, when someone is denying their basic fight or flight response to pain, I guess it only makes sense for symptoms to pop up in other forms. I have to accept it.

So what's my role, as a tattoo artist, while this takes place?

I think I'm still trying to figure that out. Noticing the change in demeanor was my first step. So now I'm focusing hard to remain confident in the tattoo at hand. I can't let their concern effect me - let alone transfer into the final product. Nor can I let anyone project doubt into my confidence.

Also if I let it instill tension between I and that client (if I take it personally) rapport can be torn apart in far less time it took to build it up.

Lately I've been starting black and grey pieces with the middle to light greys. I jump into pure black relatively soon, but not first. As if I'm saving the delight of seeing depth as a mid dinner mint.

Then I remembered overhearing a conversation. Something about hanging on to certain areas to give yourself a treat. I thought about this and have been, occasionally, leaving a section of importance for later: a well defined jaw line, a pair of shiny eyes, or a colorful area waiting to be released.

And I'm liking it. Not all the time, but enough to pull a grin.

I know I've finished eyes too quickly before. I remember thinking I would feel less stress in getting them knocked out and over with. But it ended up just feeling strange. Like eating parsley too soon.

This was so much fun. Her third tattoo, Alyssa sat like a seasoned veteran. I ended up taking my time, but making sure to tweak as much as I felt possible. I want to get some better shots with my Nikon later this week, but we'll see how that goes.

Also, I used an 11 mag (00 bugpins) on this one. It fits into a loose 9 tube... And it was outlined (well, some of it) with a tight 5.

John Montgomery held a tattoo seminar over at Joshua Carlton's Great American Tattoo Company, so it made sense to take a day off to travel and learn. So I woke up early and packed some essentials for my one man road trip: Gatorade, Red Bull, and season 4 of the Wire on my iPhone. I never look forward to an extended drive. But once I'm on the road, and my mind starts to find a zone, I enjoy the time to think.

I got a little lost, but arrived shortly before things began. Both John Montgomery and Joshua Carlton couldn't have been nicer guys. So the atmosphere was laid back, albeit slightly charged with excitement from me and a group of guys ready to learn.

John started from the beginning, showing us his stencil technique (which involves some wonderful contour hatching) and placement. Once tattooing, he then made a point to explain every thought behind his machine/needle movements. He was able to pick his own mind and give us some incredible insights: breaking down shadows, black foundational work, color blending, and so on. A bit like Bob Ross minus the cheeriness and afro. It was incredible.

What interested me was his illustration background. The experience has him rightly focusing on shapes, as opposed to just copying darks and lights. And with shapes captured, he allowed himself freedom to create off the cuff.

I'm sure some of what I picked up will make sense over time. Now, I'm just looking forward to tattoo some more and try stuff out. Oh, and the seminar was mic'ed and filmed with three seperate cameras. I'll make sure to keep you posted when the DVD is set for release.

Related Links
John Montgomery on MySpace
Joshua Carlton on MySpace

We'll be back it tomorrow, but today was intense. Brad flew in a little sick, and my family has been as well. But it doesn't matter. Once you get in the tattooing zone, the aches disappear and little tattoo fairies hover in song. I was impressed with how well he's sitting.

The difficult part is efficiency. Sure, I go over some spots more than once, but I don't need to be filling in little patches all the time. I need to hit it and land it all the time.

Oh, and I was sleepy so I took a 20 minute power nap (in the car) and it made all the difference.

Tomorrow we'll be finishing the bottom plants and ground then filling the top (to the back of knee) with blues and some fish silhouettes.

Right now, I'm going to soak in some salts.

I'm a bit tired, so I'll post pictures and hopefully you'll get the gist. And Brad, once again, was a rock.

Quick update: there are more pictures online in Brad's Flickr site.

Here's to celebrating family, tattoo family and the successful harvest. (I'm not sure what we're harvesting, but it sounds good)

I'll be skimming over details, but I'd like to share a look into a recent tattoo:

The client wanted a relatively close version of this patch. My goal was to retain the look and make it a solid, more traditional style tattoo. Well, traditional takes me extra time to figure out because I'm still trying to figure that look out. It just doesn't come natural. So I scanned the patch and resized the skull in Photoshop

Then I printed it out. After printing, I threw it on a light box and traced my own version. Only drawing the parts I needed an overall shape for. The details I knew I'd mess with directly in Photoshop.

It's a back and forth process, so what was next? I scanned the new drawing and started to trace the shapes with paths in Photoshop. (I could have used Illustrator, but I didn't have to have every shape vectorized) Using a line weight of 11 pixels, I started building up the basic shapes. I would work on one side of the skull then flipped a copy of it for symmetry.

Having a solid outline wasn't enough. I needed to sample some color to ease my concern. So I created a folder within the Photoshop Layers Palette and used it to pull gradients of colors over selected areas. By setting my Blending mode to Multiply, the black outline comes through and the color makes sense.

Instead of CCC, he wanted FOB2. So I threw in the Sweet Rosie font with a slight arc.

Once we actually got to working on the tattoo, I knew every inch of the patch. And even felt like shading a little different in the beret. Nothing big really, but it felt great having confidence. Which, by the way, was about ten times greater (after spending time with the piece) than when I first took on the project.

This is actually more like session 6 and half. As time permits, I've done some tweaking here and there. (You can smooth out blends as many times as you want on yourself.) But I covered some ground today, so it's an official session for me. My goal is to improve my shading and feel free to play around with forms that'll lay on the shape of my leg. I'd say two more sessions to go, but who knows?

Related links:
My Thigh - Session 01
My Thigh - Session 02

I've been messing with acrylics on cardboard. Here's one to share.