1/2 Price – Fully Exciting!

I think today was my most rewarding day in the tattoo shop so far. I got to tattoo two original pieces and they both turned out like I wanted them to.

During October the prompts for Day 14 of Inktober/Drawlloween were Clock and Skeleton. I did a sketch that I posted but I felt like I had done it backwards. The face of the pocket watch should not have been facing the inside of the hand. I kept redrawing it to try and get it right.  The new drawing is similar but much more logical. When I finally felt like I had it I added to my little book of flash that I have been working on. What I most want to do as a tattoo artist is create original drawings that people like enough to let me put on their skin.

Jonathan came in today with his wife so she could get a tattoo from Candace, but as she was working on her paperwork he asked if the 1/2 price apprentice tattoos were still available. I told him they were and gave him my book of drawings. I was thrilled when he told me he liked the Time in Hand drawing. We enlarged it 120% so it fit nicely on the side of his leg.

I am still working slower than I would like, but I felt very happy with the quality of my lines and the saturation of the blacks. I know I have said this before, but I think I will keep saying it again and again. It is so amazingly rewarding to be able to put my own drawing on someone’s body. I am so excited. 🙂

Time in Hand

Then after Jonathan I got to give my friend Martha her third tattoo. She had actually asked me to do a portrait of her dog Wolfie for her first tattoo but I did not think I was quite ready for that. We did a simple outline to start with but since then I had been working on sketches of her best little buddy. Today we both felt like we were ready and we are both happy with the results.

Wolfie (11/11/18)

Of course I will tattoo anything (within reason and my ability) that someone brings into the shop and requests, but I now that I am getting more confident with this medium I hope more and more of my friends will talk to me about their ideas and let me draw up designs for them. And I will keep drawing my own ideas in hopes that as people flip through the book they may find the design they did not even know was what they wanted.