Artwork courtesy of: Ricky at Deana's
Skin Art Studio, Brian at Bad Dog
Tattoos, and Chad at Devotion Tattoo
I began looking at tattoo magazines and
searching out shops locally back in
1995, then after going to a Female
Tattoo Artist show sponsored by a local
lady, I got up the guts to finally go
and do it. I was lucky enough to find
EXACTLY what I had been looking for in a
file in Deana's shop, but I was hesitant
being as she was out of town so her
assistant Ricky would be doing the
work. I hung out for a while and
decided to just go for it. This was the
day my centerpiece sun/moon yin and yang
design was born. I must admit between
fear and a bit of pain, I nearly passed
out several times, but a nice man who
was a regular at the shop went and
bought me a pack of gum and talked me
thru the whole adventure.
After two years of happy marriage with
my simple back piece, I decided it was
time to add a border to it. I was lucky
enough to have connections at another
shop where I was going to get a super
duper deal on the piece. This was a
long long process as I wanted a
relatively large piece done and they
were going to need several hours, but
whenever I was free, they weren't.
Finally on my third trip a very nice man
named Brian who was a visiting artist
from New York had some time after the
shop was closed and he put down the
basic outline for my flowers and vines
around the sun/moon. I cried and cried
on this one, the pain on the ribcage
when he was working was close to
unbearable, plus the fact that the piece
turned out twice the size I had imagined
it being!!! I never thought I would
make it thru this, but somehow once he
started I knew I had to just go with it.
Fast forward another year, and I had
recovered enough to want to add some
shading and color to the tattoo. One
problem though, tattoo artists DO NOT
like to work on other people's work, and
Brian had long gone back to New York.
After visiting shop after shop begging
for someone to work on the color and
shading, I found a friend of Brian's who
was an artist at yet ANOTHER shop who
was willing to do the work. I must say,
Chad scared me at first, he is a big guy
who is covered in tattoos himself, but
in fact he's just a big ol puppy dog!!!
He put the shading on one side, then a
few months later, the other. Now we are
finally into the coloring and I am
finally done two years later!!! With the
sheer size of the piece, I can
only take 2-3 hours of work at a time
painwise and moneywise, so I have to
save save save to get it finished,
and alas here in April of 1999 it is!!!
Will I get another I ask myself now???
The
answer is yep think I will. Next one is
going to be my libra symbol on the ankle
I
think...who knows though...we'll just
have to
see what Chad decides to draw up for
me!!