Here's a large outline I worked on today. I used a 7 round and stretched the heck out of parts of it. It's a beautiful piece done for Kylesa by John Dyer Baizley.

The final product will be fully colored, but we won't work on it for at least a few months. The eyes are a slight wash for later. The rest is straight Kuro Sumi black.

I finished proud of this one - which is rare. My lines seemed to go in solid. After five minutes tattooing, I figured out the depth and worked it with no mishaps or blow outs. Nice! Just smeared stencil all over the place; and who cares about that?

Also, I'm getting used to the right amount of wetness to leave behind on the skin from using green soap. The stencil was applied so well -which is a first- I couldn't get some of it to wash off for the picture. But I did learn a valuable lesson during this piece. During my first break, Andy went outside to smoke. We figured it would be a good idea to cover the remaining stencil with plastic wrap. Once Andy came back in and we removed the wrap, he had filled the wrap with sweat and the stencil smeared all over the place. I almost freaked out, but I remembered how a stencil can do that on dark skin sometimes. So I filled a paper towel with distilled water and gently washed off the smear. The remaining stencil was clear enough to finish. Nice.

The client found a dragon he liked from the internet. Lately this is happening more often than not. So I took the dragon and kept the shape, but altered the face and legs. You know, a little here and a little there.

It was his first tattoo and he sat like a champ. Some of the skin towards the back of the arm was rough and difficult to work with, but I just turned up the machine a little and it seemed to help a bit. This time I lined with a tight 5 and shaded with a 13 (00 bugpins). Because the bugpins are so tiny, the 13 fits perfectly in my 9 tube.

It took awhile, but I just finished updating the tattoo gallery.

I tried to write some good commentary. And I posted a couple of links to outlines and a sketch of the underwater tattoo.

Enjoy!

There has been a death in my family, so I'll return to posting next week.

I've got something I'd like to give to some of you, and it's lovely. If you're a professional tattoo artist and you use Photoshop, I've compiled a load of stock imagery I use for walk-ins. I'd love to share it with you.

Just e-mail me at dutchpink@gmail.com.

The e-mail has to include:
1. Your name.
2. The name of your place or shop.
3. Either a website or phone # to verify.

I did two of these, and this is the second one. My wife and her brother lost their father, Clifford. He always wanted a tattoo of Clifford the big red dog, so it was fitting for me to tattoo them with it upon his death.

I've put off tattooing Ashlee, because I'm a perfectionist. And I don't want my critical eye to be looking at her. But this was important. Oh, and her skin is gorgeous, it took color beautifully. It looks like I'll be decorating her more often, with really large pieces.

And I didn't get a photo of it immediately, so this shot has some onion skin action going on.

This lady loved the Nightmare arm piece I'm working on, and wanted to get a big Jack flesh rip. How cool is that? We were going to add a ton more gore, but she decided against it at the last minute.

This was done with a 7 round liner and an 11 mag.

It's amazing to me the difference between 9 mag and a 11 mag. I'm used to a 9, so you'd think adding 2 tiny needles would add just a bit of extra. You know, nothing substantial. But I find myself not as confident with the lay of the needles. Instead of trusting where the underneath will go (not the top of the needles which I can see, rather the bottom row - the one hidden by the tube), I error on the side of not going over the lines. Which means a tiny line of space is left open between the fill and the outline. Which means... more time filling in.

I love how a bigger mag (and an 11 is not even that big) lets me brush out a smooth fade, but, when constricted I need to get used to it so I can keep aiming for efficiency.

From me to you, a lovely rendition of a - Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis.

Studies in Pen Art (7.5 MB PDF)

For some reason, I've always loved this booklet by W.E. Dennis. It's been available online for awhile, but never quite accessible enough for me to utilize. So I spent some time with it: cleaned up the scans, adjusted rotations, resized it to fit on normal paper, and condensed even more to my liking.

I love tattoo script - hello, BJ Betts. So to get a further understanding and appreciation, it's good for me to go back to some old script penmanship.

Go here for more Rare Books on Calligraphy, Penmanship, and Pen Art. The page has a list of raw, scanned e-books to download for free.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!