Banyan Tree of Life
- Details
- Created: Sunday, 01 April 2012 08:00
Stephanie's husband has a couple of tattoos and is thinking about getting another one. After hearing that, Stephanie said, "Wait, I want a tattoo--it's my turn! I get to go next," and got working on ideas for her first tattoo. Growing up in Florida, she loves the Banyan trees there and knew that a tree would be the base of her tattoo. She decided to build elements into and around the tree that have importance in her life: her family, the arts and sciences, the animal kingdom. Click on the Read more link to see the drawing and the photos from our first and second sessions.
Ryan got a tattoo on his right arm when he was 18. He would like to have something more meaningful for him now that he is older and has decided on a realistic lion cover up/camouflage concept. It will work perfectly for a cover up/camouflage piece, as it conforms very well to the Cover up formula (larger, more detailed line work, darker value colors, use position to move and fool the eye, etc.). The original tattoo was pretty dark, so we have had to pump some white into it to get it to turn lighter in value (more gray, instead of black.) You can see the old tat after we've just done our second session of white in his photo to the right. Click on the Read more link to see the drawing and the photos from our first outlining session.
Jon grew up on a farm and has always liked having animals around, especially horses and dogs. He has kept bird dogs for awhile and enjoys hunting with them; in 2011 he lost two of his dogs and wanted to have a memorial tattoo done for them. He decided that he wanted a Celtic cross for the "tombstone" aspect of the piece, as his heritage is Welsh. The eastern Oregon landscape has always fascinated him, so he thought it would be nice to have that in the background. We are going to add some more of the landscape around into his bicep area and put a dog in it, so that people will understand better what the tattoo is about. Click on the Read more link to see the drawing and some process photos.
Donna contacted me about a tattoo idea that she had for her foot and ankle area. She already had a butterfly tattooed on the outside of her right leg, positioned right above her ankle and she wanted to add some Frangipani (Plumeria) flowers to it. She was also thinking that she wanted to put a lily on her foot and was looking for a tattoo artist with experience tattooing people with dark skin, specifically, someone who was comfortable putting lots of color in their tats. We talked about that a bit: I told her that from my training and experience, there are certain techniques and particular colors that work well on dark skin. For instance, we can use an open design, bold outlines and bright, intense colors for tats on dark skin that will help them stand out and look good. Mostly, I wanted to talk to her about foot tattoos and how there are special considerations for them: we can only tattoo the top of the foot, it is particularly painful and there are specific healing instructions for foot tats (no running a marathon the day after getting a foot tat, etc.) Click on the Read more link to see the drawing, the before pic and some process (outline) photos. You can still see some of the stencil marks (purple) on her foot and leg.
Rachelle has a very beautiful, very traditional Japanese half sleeve on her right arm that she is working on completing. When she contacted me she wanted to have the bird on her upper inner shoulder turned into a Red-tailed Hawk and her inner arm filled with mountain ranges from Juneau, Alaska, where she's from. She is almost finished with a degree in art from a university in New Mexico and has a lot of wonderful ideas to finish out her arm; one is to turn the sleeve into a four elements piece utilizing Hokusai waves. I hope she lets me continue to work on it with her! Here is what she has to say, "I've been influenced by beautiful things and experiences in nature and feel spiritually connected to the earth. This tattoo has developed over the last few years into an elemental themed sleeve with each image representing a spiritual connection to a location and an important life lesson to live by. Choosing the Japanese style of tattooing was important because they have been successful at demonstrating their connection to the earth through art. I plan to finish off the sleeve with flowing ocean water and water animals at the bottom, and creating a sky behind the clouds on the top." Click on the Read more link to see the drawings and some after photos.
Like a lot of people I tattoo, Sara got a tattoo when she was younger that she wanted to have covered up and converted into something that is more meaningful for her now. She chose an excellent concept: the Phoenix, symbol of transformation and change. It conforms perfectly to the "Cover up/Camouflage Formula". The new tattoo cover up/image must be larger, with more detailed line work, use colors of dark value and utilize position to move and fool the eye. We decided to have the phoenix wrapping around Sara's upper arm, to make it look like it's flying/moving around her arm. Click on the Read more link to see the drawing, before pix and some process photos.
James is a local writer currently focusing on the fantasy/science fiction genre. He has written several books, three that comprise the Dragon Flames Saga. He decided on a back tattoo that would feature some of his favorite characters from that world. "For my back I wanted to have a mural of the Dragon Flames Saga to remind me of my largest and most memorable story," he says. He started out with a list of about 19 of them (!!) but we were able to pare it down to five of the most important ones, after some serious negotiating. After several sessions, we are getting closer to being finished with his tattoo. Click on the Read more link to see the drawing I created (using his detailed character descriptions) and some process photos.
Sandy had two small, old kanji tattoos on her back when she came in to see me about an idea that she had for a complete back tattoo. (See the Before photo below, by clicking the Read more link.) She wanted the tattoo to be about her family--- herself and her two children--with totems to represent each one. The main image was to be the Tree of Life in the rough shape of a dragonfly. At that time, she wanted to keep the kanji in and add more kanji for her children's names underneath their images and the kanji symbol for "Family" in the center of the tree, which would be in the middle of her back. Then she decided that she wanted to take all of the kanji out and to put the Celtic Trifecta in the middle, as that was more in line with her family's heritage. I altered the stencil to reflect that. Then I pumped some white over the old tats and we inked in her grayline. Graylining is a technique that is used for getting the stencil in the skin when there is a large area to cover. I go in super fast and light with a small needle. The resulting line work is not solid or very uniform but allows me to get my "blue print" in the skin, so that I can get the outline in without losing the stencil, even if it takes several sessions. Click on the Read more link to see the drawing and photos.
Lisa is a model and came in to see me about an existing tattoo that she had on her chest. She wanted a bleeding heart tattoo that reflected her ideas about beauty and was unhappy with the version that she received. (See the photo below, by clicking the Read more link, where you can see the old tattoo underneath the stencil.) We surfed the web together, when she came in for her consultation, looking for photos of bleeding hearts that reflected a more "realistic" or botanical view of the plant than "hearts on a stick" as one person had described her old tat. We pulled some great images, I created a drawing for her and we inked in her grayline today. Graylining is a technique that is used for getting the stencil in the skin, when there are time limitations on the session; I go in super fast and light with a small needle. The resulting line work is not solid or very uniform but allows me to get my "blue print" in the skin, so that we can take our time with the outline, if need be. Click on the Read more link to see the drawing and process photos.
Erica has many small tattoos, including some lovely gray work pieces of a pine cone near her right ankle and fiddle heads on the back of her left leg. She decided that her next tattoo would be a beet and when she came into the shop to talk to me about it I said, "Yes! I've always wanted to tattoo a beet or some other type of leafy vegetable for somebody! I'm so glad that you came in. What do you think about using botanical illustrations as a starting point for the drawing?" She says that a lot of people ask her,"Why a beet? Why would you want to get that tattooed on you?" And she answers that as a vegetarian, she loves to eat beets, that they are her favorite vegetable and a good source of nutrients. As a fellow vegetarian, I think that's great. I also like that she has leg tattoos that reflect the bounty of nature and I was very happy to have her beet "growing" up her leg. It's a fantastic placement and will be really vibrant when we get it done. We just have one more color session to complete and then the beet will be finished. Click on the Read more link to see the drawing and process photos.