Best Friends and Sisters

This post is a bit delayed, as I got this tattoo almost a month ago, but frankly I was waiting for it to heal to get a better photo.  It's crazy how a tattoo so small has been one of the most irritating.  This coming from a woman who LOVES getting tattoos, but not this one.  The healing process for this tattoo was awful.  It also bled A LOT!  It also peeled and itched much more than any of my other tattoos.  It still feels a bit dry almost a month later.

Anyway....

March 1, 2014 - Authentic Ink Tattoo (Omaha, NE)
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* Location: Right ankle

* Tattoo: Red watercolor Lotus  with Infinity symbol

Story:  Well, as I've mentioned in some previous posts, I will be moving to the UK (this has been delayed to this November).  With this move, I will inevitably be leaving my friends and family behind here.  I have also mentioned my friend Kimber at least once throughout this blog, as well.  She was there for the Triforce tattoo, which was the beginning of my journey of tattoos with my tattoo artist, Spike.  Kimber and I have known each other since we were about 6 years old.  She is my sister, and I'm hers.  We wanted to get a tattoo that symbolized our relationship to each other, and that we'd always be by each other's side.  We had thought about getting a Batman and Robin tattoo (as that is something we happened to cling to - She's my Robin and I'm her Batman), but that never happened.  With my impending move, we wanted to get something done before that happened.  She is a Buddhist (I'm actually not religious at all) and I have been practicing yoga for quite a few years.  I've recently discovered the ideals of Buddhism and like most of the principals behind it.  I don't know that I can completely get behind all of it, or become a Buddhist, but I believe in their base ideals.  The red Lotus flower symbolizes love and passion, so for our friendship/sisterhood, we landed on the Lotus flower.  Mine is on my right ankle and hers is on her left, so that we are always by each other's side.

As you can see, we wanted it to have a watercolor look to it.  Though, honestly I've seen a lot of watercolor tattoos and most of them appear like a small child drew on you and it happened to be permanent (that was a mild exaggeration, because that would be a rather talented small child, but...still).  I just don't think those are meant to be tattoos, but that's just my opinion.  I think my artist feels the same way about that.  I only say this because he had some trouble not "drawing in the lines."  It required effort on his part to do it this way.  

This tattoo, however, just has a bit of casualness to it in lieu of being completely deliberate, or all over the place.  I liked this for our tattoo because our relationship has always been quite whimsical.  We're always getting in to trouble with each other, but at the same time keep each other on the straight and narrow when needed.  We know that no matter what the circumstances, the other will be there to lend support in anyway that it's needed.

Number 7 - "Night is Purer than Day..."

I must confess that though I knew who the author of the quote I chose to get permanently inked on my body was, I did not actually know its origin.  I don't know why I never looked.  Maybe it's because I believed this quote was a piece of beautiful mysterious poetry, so I looked no further.  The quote (or the poem I believed it was) simply grabbed me in a way I couldn't quite describe.  I loved the side by side of night and day and when I found the photo of the skeleton trees, it just came together for me.  Well, a few nights ago, my boyfriend and I were discussing tattoos, how you've come up with what you wanted and what it actually means to you (if anything, because many people don't have a deeper meaning behind their tattoo choices - hence the conversation) and he asked me about the quote I had.  So, I told him the author, Elie Weisel, and read him the full quote, as what I have tattooed is not the full quote (that would be quite wordy).  Anyway, he asked where it came from (not the author, but where it came from) and I realized that I had absolutely no idea.  Oddly enough it took me quite a few Google attempts to come up with the originating source of this quote, which as it turns out, is not poetry.  It is actually an excerpt from a book he wrote.  This book is part of a trilogy...  Finding out the true origination (and meaning for the author) gave my tattoo a whole new perspective.  Don't get me wrong, it still means the same thing to me, but.... I have a new appreciation.

Elie wrote three books: Night, Dawn and Day

"Night is one of the masterpieces of Holocaust literature. First published in 1958, it is the autobiographical account of an adolescent boy and his father in Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel writes of their battle for survival and of his battle with God for a way to understand the wanton cruelty he witnesses each day. In the short novel Dawn (1960), a young man who has survived World War II and settled in Palestine joins a Jewish underground movement and is commanded to execute a British officer who has been taken hostage. In Day(previously titled The Accident, 1961), Wiesel questions the limits of conscience: Can Holocaust survivors forge a new life despite their memories? Wiesel’s trilogy offers insights on mankind’s attraction to violence and on the temptation of self-destruction."

http://www.amazon.com/The-Night-Trilogy-Dawn-Day/dp/0809073641

This quote comes from a piece of literature based on his true experiences through the Holocaust.  Now, you don't know me, so you obviously won't know that I have had an innate interest in the Holocaust since I was a kid.  Finding out that this quote comes from the words of someone who endured such struggle simply brings a whole new meaning to my tattoo for me.  My tattoo for me symbolized my poetic successes and struggles, as well as some of my life's struggles.  I liked the idea of night and day over the skeleton trees, because people normally associate skeletons simply with darkness and death, but in my tattoo, I believe it symbolizes not the end, but the beginning of something new.  Things have not come to an end simply because the sun has set, the moon comes out and shines a new light.  Everything is reborn and nothing simply ends.  Things merely change.

I have not read the books yet, but fully intend to.  Everything appears to happen for a reason, yes?

Epiphany and Another Tattoo...

Hello again,

My tattoo has been ever so prevalent on my mind lately, especially after my last session.  My tattoo clearly doesn't look done right now and that bothers me quite a lot.  It wasn't so bad when it at least appeared to be finished (even though it wasn't), but now it's quite obvious that it isn't done.  So, I kept racking my brain about what to do about the middle section between the Phoenix and the Dragon.  Then it came to me!  I had an Ah-Ha moment - my tattoo epiphany!  I decided that since none of this tattoo REALLY goes together, because let's be honest, it doesn't; it just happens to blend well.

Anyway, I decided that a TARDIS was in order.  Yes, you heard me right - a TARDIS.  I absolutely love, love, love Doctor Who, but never could imagine having a large tattoo dedicated just to that.  I'm a huge fangirl of a lot of things, but I'm also not a fan of having tattoos of just something I'm a fan of (like Doctor Who, Star Wars, ext.).  Don't ask me why, I just don't.  So.... my idea is that the yellow and orange rays will continue to blend over, as well as the water, then the purplish storm looking clouds that are going to be around the Phoenix on the back will begin to swirl in with the water and rays on the front.  In the middle of all this magical blended beautifulness will be the TARDIS in all its glory.  I think it will be a wonderful juxtaposition.  I'm sure I won't be able to have this completely finished before leaving, but I'm hoping that with a complete end look in mind, he'll be able to do something that will make it look mostly done.  That was really the only hangup... not knowing what the end result was going to be.  Well, I finally have one and it's an exciting feeling to have.


NEW TATTOO....

My best friend (but in all reality she's more like my sister) Kimber and I have been wanting to get matching tattoos.  We were going to do a Batman and Robin thing, because 3 years ago we bought Batman and Robin shirts for Halloween and it kind of took off from there, but I found something better......and a bit more meaningful.  We're going to get Lotus flowers with stems curling into the infinity symbol.  The Lotus flowers will be red symbolizing love, compassion and the qualities of the heart.  We will each get the tattoo on our ankles; her's will be on her right ankle and mine will be on my left.  This way, we're always by each other's side.  We plan to get this done the first weekend in March.


I'm still uncertain as to when I'll be able to get back in to get more done on my thigh piece as of right now (financially).  All I know is that I need at least one more session before leaving... It needs to look somewhat done.

I have also been contemplating the continuation of my ink and whether I really want more.  I have at least one more large piece I have in mind that I KNOW I want, and one other one that it just a good idea, but I'm not in love with it.  I do think that since I'm leaving that I might decide to get the last one done with another artist, just to have gotten another one done by someone else.  I love Spike's work, and if I were staying in Omaha, he'd be the one to do anything I wanted done, but.....


To be continued...

The Thigh Piece Continues...

I'm so glad that I got the opportunity to get back into the shop an get some more work done on my thigh piece so quickly.  I have my grandfather to thank for sending me a very generous Christmas gift.  Because of that I was able to get 3 and a half more hours under the needle. 

December 21, 2013 - Authentic Ink Tattoo (Omaha, NE)

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* Location: Back/front of right thigh

* Tattoo: A continuation on the Dragon/Butterfly/Orchids/Phoenix Tattoo

 Here is a photo of the finished Phoenix.  This took up the bulk of the time.  He spent approximately 2 hours on finishing up this guy.  He first went through with a darker red, then with the yellow.  He looks fantastic - don't you think?!  I certainly do.  I'm very happy with how he turned out.  Next will be some clouds with purplish hues.  I have to say - this one was quite painful.  It's still causing me quite a bit of pain.  I foresee a long healing process on this one.  I'm sure it's due to the same area getting a twice over.

And here's a little collage of all the work that was done during this session.  I now notice that the filter I put on this one makes the Phoenix look darker than it really is (I guess that's Instagram for you - oh well).  It may not look like much was done on the front, but he started extending the orange and yellow rays over in the areas surrounding the dragon and the water in the area surrounding the orchids.  He also added some white in the black/grey orchids, which make them stand out quite well.  He also did a little touch-up on the butterflies, which had a few light spots on them.  He would have continued and kept moving out towards the butterflies, but I haven't quite figured out what I plan to do in the middle... So, he didn't want to blend over too far without knowing what we were going to do there.  

Here's to hoping I manage to have an epiphany on what to do with that open space!

Bring a Can of Food - Save $20!

Authentic Ink is running it's annual food drive deal.  If you bring in a non-parishable food item, you save $20 off of a tattoo.  The deal ends December 23rd, so get in there ASAP to save your $20.  I'm going to be heading in this Wednesday to schedule my next appointment for the Phoenix portion of my tattoo.

Who doesn't want to save $20 on their ink?!

And We're Back At It!

I have finally gotten back into my Dragon Tattoo.  As stated in my previous post, I hadn't been back since July.  That my friends had been due to driving back and forth between Oklahoma every month since the end of July up until October, but that's a whole other story that I won't bore you with right now, because after all, you're hear to read about my tattoos and not my love life, right?  Right.  Anyway, I knew I had to get on top of getting this tattoo going again since I'm leaving the country, again another story, so here we are.

We began this session by trying to figure out how to make the tattoo still appear done by the time I left, because we both knew that it wouldn't be "done" before I leave the country, but it's important for it to appear done to everyone else who sees it since it will be a good long while before I can return to actually finish it.  A part of the tattoo that he and I had discussed, but that I hadn't mentioned here, is the Phoenix.  We decided that it would really pull everything together if we did a Phoenix on the back side of my thigh (not to mention it would be really bad ass!!), so that's where we decided to start in this session.

November 20, 2013 - Authentic Ink Tattoo (Omaha, NE)

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* Location: Back side of right thigh

* Tattoo: A continuation on the Dragon/Butterfly Tattoo - Phoenix

* Story: I'm not going to go back into the story portion of this here too much since I covered that in my first post about this tattoo, but suffice to say that the Phoenix was not part of the original plan.  This may be the first tattoo (or part of a tattoo) that I didn't have some awesome story behind.  I've always found Phoenix's to be pretty damn awesome, and part of the point of this tattoo was mysticism and fantasy.  Neither dragons nor the phoenix are real creatures, but they appear throughout fantasy books, movies, and games, which I love.  When I think about the Phoenix, I think about Greek Mythology and Harry Potter.  Awesome, right?  Yeah, I thought so.

Here's a look at session one of the Phoenix.  It's certainly far from finished.  This was merely the first hour and a half (sorry the photo isn't the greatest - it's a little difficult to get a decent photo of the back of your own leg).

Stay Tuned!

Finally!!!

Wow, the last time I posted was all the way back in July and I had spoken about trying to get into the shop in a week or so.  Well, that clearly never happened.  I simply didn't have the time, nor the money, which was rather unfortunate.  But I am now faced with NEEDING to get back to it because I'm going to run out of time.  Ladies and Gentleman, I am leaving the country in a few months, so I've got to get going on this tattoo of mine!

I have no illusions that I'll be able to get this tattoo finished before I leave (there's still a good 10-14 hours left on this, if not more), but I'm going to make damn sure that I get as much done as feasibly possible before I leave.  I have no idea when I'll return to be able to finish it.  I found it humorous that when I went to make an appointment to resume inking my artist made sure to say, "Don't let some other limey bastard fix my shit!"  Haha, well hell no!  There's no way in the world any other artist will touch this tattoo.  Tattoos are art and you NEVER have another artist touch another artist's work. That is unless you made the mistake of letting some shitty artist ink your body and totally fuck shit up.  Then, by all means, find someone who is willing to fix it, but they probably won't be terribly happy about it.

So... this Wednesday I will be getting some more work done! Finally!!

Updates and photos to come soon!