4:45 pm Whew! What a day! I'm exhausted. I worked in my storage for hours before I came in at noon and I've been tattooing since I got here. Now I'm waiting on Tommy. Needles made, tubes sterilized- I'm ready. I don't know how long I'm going to last. If this was ANY other tattoo I'd reschedule. Where is he?

10:30pm I've GOT to get some sleep- I'm beat! Tommy got here a little later than usual today; which was OK by me because I needed a little down time. I was dragging ass as I made his needles and put everything into the Statim. I told Tommy that tonight would be a short appointment. He surprised me by sounding a little let-down about a short appointment. I thought I was doing him a favor but he said, “I figure if I'm going to be here I may as well get as much done as I can. It feels like we're making slow progress even though you're telling me we're going fast.”

I managed to finish up Kali before I called it a night- we only worked for 3 hours. It felt, to me, like we'd been working for 6. He's healing up all the color really well, but the blue in Kali will need a little bit of touch-up. Everyone around the shop thinks I'm crazy for being so anal but I want this tattoo to be as perfect as I can make it. I know that if I spend a little bit of time touching up the blue, it'll look even better than it does now- and that's pretty good by all the accounts I've heard so far. The jewelry was a bit of a bitch but it's looking good. The weird thing tonight was the bleeding- Tommy bled like a stuck pig! I don't know what was going on- I checked the needles, the machine was running normal and he hadn't had anything to drink in days. I don't know what was going on, but it wasn't much fun. I hope it doesn't happen again.

The only thing unfinished on Kali, now, is his skirt of arms. If I wasn't so tired tonight I would have finished them. I was beginning to drift off in my mind so I decided I needed to stop for the night. It'll wait for a week.

January 29, 2004

As usual, I was unprepared when Tommy got to Body Adorned today. In fact, I had lost track and forgotten it was even Thursday- our regular tattoo appointment. I took a quick tracing of the basic cobra outline I had already tattooed on Tommy's back so I could draw the scales.

It's a lot easier, and accurate, for me to draw the scales from a tracing than it would be to draw them on or than to use the original sketch. The way a design lays on the body is always slightly different than how it is on the original drawing; so tracing the outline as it lays guarantees that the scales would fit the cobra's contour when I stencil them on.

To me, drawing tattoos directly on a person is (generally) nothing more than ego masturbation. Early in my career I had the good fortune to be talking with Guy Aitcheson in a hotel room I was sharing with Chris Trevino at a tattoo convention we were working. Guy pointed out that no matter HOW good an artist is, there is absolutely no way to draw something directly on that's as good as what that same artist could come up with given a pencil, eraser and some time. The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. Of course, the are times when I'm forced to draw something on, like connecting the pieces of a stencil or fixing a messed up stencil; and there are occasions when I decide to add something that I can draw in my sleep. For the most part, though, I don't draw things on.

It took me about an hour to get the stencil for the stencils made, needles made and sterilized, my station set up and the stencils laid on. We finally got started around 6 O'clock . Tommy did really well today- sat like a rock and didn't bleed at all like he did last Thursday. I don't know what the deal was last week, but I'm glad it seems to have been a fluke! You'd think I'd be used to how quickly he heals up color from week to week, but I'm not- every time I look at his back I'm blown away by how good my work looks on him.

I'm still not sure exactly how I'm going to color the snake so I only did the outline for the scales before I moved onto the top of the ring of flames. I colored the red outlined flames with a blend of deep red, navel orange and a golden yellow. They're typical Tibetan flames, but they have a lot more to them than Tommy had anticipated. I think he likes them, though. They're going to heal up really bright and really work well.

Since we got a late start, tonight was a shorter sitting- only three and a half hours- but I feel like we made some significant progress. Tommy has a little trouble seeing how much we are making, but he's hanging in there which is good. We're only going to have one more sitting before he leaves for a cruise with his wife- some much needed R&R. I'm not looking forward to missing one of our weekly appointments, but I think it'll be good for Tommy both mentally and physically. I'm hoping he'll come back refreshed and ready to get back to work.

 

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January 22, 2004