Are the lambs still screaming? Tattoo #2

The apprenticeship is moving a bit slower than I would like, but I did get the chance to give my second tattoo. Stephen, the most advanced apprentice at Celtic Crow, has a large collection of tattoos, mainly horror film related. He has only been giving tattoos for about 6 months (he started as a piercer) but he has been getting them for years. Candace called him an expert tattoo receiver. Sunday afternoon at the shop we were chatting and he asked me what I wanted to tattoo next and I answered whatever anyone would let me do. I was thrilled when he offered himself for me to practice on. He also told me I could try and use his tattoo pen which has a very different feel than the coil and rotary machines I have been using. The shop got busy Sunday afternoon so we made plans for me to come by Monday after work. I was very excited.

Stephen does beautiful delicate line work that I am very impressed with but luckily the design he wanted on himself was not so intricate.  His choice was the moth from the Silence of the Lambs movie poster. The lines are thicker and the organic nature of the color and pattern on the wings made me think it was a good one for me to try. I was very nervous but I think I was also a little over confident. This one turned out to be more difficult and stressful than working on Scott’s arm.

The first issue was that this is a cover up. One of his son’s name is in the middle of the moth’s face. It would have been better if I could have moved the stencil farther up his neck, but he is not allowed to have neck tattoos at his job (at the women’s prison) and so we were playing to wear the collar of his work uniform ends. Dale says that if if put enough white in there it will cover up the black, but Scott does not seem as convinced. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.

The next issue was that I was using his pen instead of one of Scott’s rotary machines. It really did feel different in my hand. Though I am still incredibly far away from Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours at least I have been practicing with the Scott’s Hummingbird fairly consistently.

But honestly I think the biggest problem was that since he knows “how a tattoo should feel” every time I got too heavy or too light he let me know. Now, that should be a good thing, because I know I need to learn how to be more consistent with the depth of my needles. But what ended up happening was that my confidence got eroded and because I did not want to be hurting him I got way too light and then I had to keep going over the same areas which ends up hurting worse. Both Candace and Dale came in and tried to offer me some advice which I heard and tried to apply, but even though my head seemed to understand what they were telling me my hand did not seem to. It was fairly frustrating, and it kept getting later and later. We did not leave the shop till 1am. Someone who is usually in bed by 10 should probably not be tattooing after midnight.

So, since that evening Scott and I have looked at the moth and talked about it, and other than the issues with how Ethan’s name is going to be covered up, he feels like it is not as bad as I thought. He thinks once I add the color it will turn out to be a fine tattoo. Since the first work was done on July 16 it will be early August before I can go back in and start adding the color. Hopefully I will have a positive update then.

11/4

Final Touch Ups 11/4/18

9/13  – Finally had a chance to start adding some color. It will need a third pass to really be what I want it to be, but I feel like we made good progress.

2 thoughts on “Are the lambs still screaming? Tattoo #2”

  1. I live for these updates! I’m so excited about your new venture. Thank you for sharing your progress!

  2. Congratulations Jenn! I’m so excited that you started tattooing. I have always admired your artwork and think you will do great using skin as your new canvas. Thank you for the sketch, I love it! Best wishes on your new endeavor.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.