Stevie

How do you start your journey to getting a tattoo? These days it has become much easier with the advent of the internet. Look at portfolios, seriously dig into as many tattoo artists and studios that you can. This will familiarize yourself with the many different styles and facets of tattooing. You will start gravitating to certain work and that is something that you will know inside of yourself. Remember that custom work is exactly what it states. Work customized to your thoughts, your meaning, your body part, all couture and custom designed just for you. It could be a reproduction of a crazy statue you saw somewhere, a painting that has been in your heart since days gone by(Michelangelo rules!, Rafael....intensely technical and hard to pull of in skin!). Reproduction work is definitely exciting, but just make sure that you dont try to copy some tattoo that you saw in a magazine, borrow ideas from it but in the end make it your own! Custom work is still the minority of tattooing out there, but is growing as the public realizes that they can really express, in a very individual way, their own voice or selves thru their body art. Again, i encourage you to ask us any questions regarding the wonderful world of tattooing. Even if you are not in the South Florida area and want some input on your tattoo endeavor, i welcome your thoughts and openly will give you my opinions. Your first tattoo is like your first born, the kitten gloves are on and nervousness is there mixed with serious excitement and anticipation. The other kids, like the later tattoos, are still precious but lack the nervousness and anxiety that that first one can give you. Most of you that are getting heavily covered know exactly what i mean on that point. As always, my tattoos on the site are easy to download, just right click and 'save as'. It is for anyone that wants to enjoy them and maybe a few out there that get inspiration from them, the latter being such a compliment to me.

I am invigorated with the studio kicking into some art projects via the computer and different mediums, but to our excitement, the lessons are being wonderfully imposed into the tattoo work! Using a camera and various light sources we are truly studying how light plays on objects, different colors are being mixed via an electrical light source, and to truly study what nature does to blend color is really freaking me out. It is one thing to theoretically make assumptions on how a specific surface, whether it be the face of a dragon, the coils of a snake, the shimmer of an object underwater, reacts to light, but to see how a surface is actually responding to a light is something to really get lost in. To see the drop shadows created in detail, what an outstanding reference point that both Josh and I are really like 2 little kids learning from. I was, and am starting to again, once obsessed with water drops on surfaces. I am now revisiting this with a new found idea on how to study them. As i write this i am reminded to go to Toys-R-Us to find a very chrome looking Silver Surfer. I need to play with light sources and study this organic chrome organism. This point i may have to revisit in this writing as it may be a bit complicated to explain my thoughts before they have become more solid and cohesive. Bottom line? The computer and other medium are starting to encourage more digging with what can be successfully done in skin. Mind you, tattooing is not easy. If you are a tattooist and push hard to grow, you fully understand how humbling tattooing can be. It is a medium that is so much like living sculpture. The canvas breathes, moves, expands. It changes shape, it can really be humbling to realize how much time is truly needed to start accomplishing work that the artist is proud of and of course to really effectively give a client their most prized possession, to make them proud to wear a tattoo that you successfully built with them. This is such an accomplishment! Also this fine line of tattooing an image onto a body, the understanding of how the body, the skin, the work ages and to modify the design so that the work stands the test of time. The old school tattoo artists gave us that understanding with those insanely solid tattoos and what they have in them to make them like fine wines. They taste really good now, they will taste possibly even better 10, 20, 30 years from now. I personally am not old school, new school, late for school, detention after school. I just realized something. I am a whore. I want to explore every style, every aspect of tattooing, the graphic side that is the foundation of every piece, and also the advent of this fine art tattooing where it seems that airbrushing has been introduced to the work. But in the end i want the work to stand the test of time, not just a tattoo that looks good when done for a website picture.

I think it may be time to start a blog that this site, due to the magic of Larry Dhara's website building and cold fusion savvy, has built right in. I would be curious as to if that would get any attention. I take a risk rambling like this on the site, but i wanted to 'think out loud' about my thoughts in a very loose manner to just explore even the medium of a website. Hope this writing gave you something, if not just a headache, to ponder and I am excited to keep pushing tattooing and see where it will go in the near future. Thank you for your time, and keep getting tattooed! Another thing, you know how fortunate I am to be working with Josh? This guy has become just a powerhouse of inspiration and joy to be around. To have an artist working under the same tree that shares the same vigor and vitality about this art that you do is not only rare and a godsend, but just an inspiration and a blessing. The more I tattoo, the more thankful I become of my surroundings and i am really blessed right now in my career. Now lets see what trouble i can get into... Oh, yea. Toys-R-Us....

Stevie