I met Heidi through my mutual Burner friend Darryl. She was a tattoo virgin, which is always fun for me-- a blank canvas! She lives in California, so she had to travel a bit to get up here to me in Portland.
She was thinking she wanted her first tattoo to be two great herons to represent her two daughters, who are half Japanese American; she wanted to include some cherry blossoms for them, as well. When we met for her consultation, she brought in several examples of the imagery she liked, so I was able to get a pretty good idea of her vision for the piece.
I have created so many lovely tattoos featuring cherry blossoms. And of course, I am very familiar with herons, as I used to live near the Oak's Bottom Nature Reserve and saw them often on my walks.
After deciding that the piece should be on her upper back, we got started. It did take us some time to finish, because of the distance between us, but we managed and now Heidi has a perfect first tattoo.
Here are some pictures of the drawing, outline and gray, and very fresh color stages.
