6/25/11

Learned a shitty yet inevitable lesson today...you're never going to make everyone happy.

6/13/11

Phew! Saturday was a very busy day! I started tattooing at 11:30am, and didn't really stop until 9pm! it was AWESOME. haha. It was almost like an adrenaline rush. I loved how busy it was! Here's one of the tattoos I did that day. I was very proud of this one ;D she was an awesome client, very friendly and sat perfectly still.

6/9/11

I swear i need to put a post it on all the computers i use that say "WRITE IN YOUR BLOG" to remind me of this on a daily basis. Im so forgetful sometimes and it just bites me in the ass routinely >.< Today my daughter had a little graduation ceremony from Pre-K. I'm so amazed at how big she's already gotten.. feels just like yesterday she was learning to walk.

Anyhow, I finished the design for my Business Card, and sent the drawing to my very good friend Dana who works as a graphics designer. She's putting the rest of it together for me, which im pretty stoked about. She's amazing at what she does and she really wanted to do this for me. She's got three ideas thrown together that she'll be emailing me, and letting me choose one. I can't wait to see what she's done with it!

Well, off to bed for now. I'll -hopefully- write more tomorrow if i can one of these days remember this thing regularly >.< Goodnight!

6/4/11

Got two walk-in's today!! This is so awesome, haha. I watched some of the Mike Devries video on photoshop, which was pretty awesome. Although im still fairly clueless on how it works, i think i might be getting the hang of it a bit more each time i use it. I finished the drawing for my buisness card, and now i just need to get it all set up and sent in to be made. I'll be back in on monday, till next time!

5/31/11

Today was an absolutely amazing day. Ron informed me today that i will be put on the floor for small tattoos! I go purchase my vendor's license tomorrow morning, and then sign the contract when i arrive to work! It took every inch of me not to jump up and down and squeal like a school girl, haha! I also got to do this really rad rose today on a pretty awesome chick. God, I am so fucking excited i can't stand it!

5/30/11

Today is Memorial day, as well as my wedding anniversary. Did some drawing this weekend, been working a bit on lettering and such as when it comes time to start taking walk-ins, it would be nice to be able to throw something together quickly to impress clients. I've got two appointments this next week, which im pretty excited for.

I'll scan some drawings in tomorrow, and post a few to show things i've been doing lately with my free time. Till then! Have a nice memorial day ;D

5/27/11

Been awhile again on my last post, as i've had a bit of trouble logging into blogger. Kept receiving an error 404 message "page not found" whenever i tried to log on. Been a quiet week, but i have two appointments later today. I also plan on working on my business card some more today, and to watch some how to use photoshop videos. I'll post more later today about how everything went.

5/21/11

Pretty quiet for a saturday. Watching Ron do a really cool chest piece on his client. It never stops amazing me how quickly and flawlessly his pieces come together. Guess thats what 20+ years and passion for this art turns into :P Off to Canada to visit my sister when i get off tonight, kind of a long drive after a long day, but well worth it.

5/20/11

Been awhile since i've last posted..as it's been a week since i did my last tattoo. It's been pretty slow for me as of late with getting appointments, due to a few changes. Hopefully things will pick back up soon :) I did two tattoos today, the first i didn't use a liner whatsoever, just a 7 mag. The second i used a liner for the harley shield, and a 7 mag for the skull. Im trying to work more on my light sourcing..i see a few mistakes i made now, looking back at them, but i'll get the hang of it. The buddah is a shitty picture.. I couldn't seem to take one that did it any justice at all. Ron got to see it in person, and he said it looked good. So we'll see.

Enjoy.

5/11/11

Tried something new today with this one. No black outline. Im pretty happy with it, and so was the client ;D ;D ;D Too bad she was super tan so the lighter colors weren't as bright as i would of liked them to be, but all in all im happy :)

5/10/11

Simple day.

Getting a little bit better with parallel lines.

5/9/11

For some reason i thought i posted these pictures saturday, but looking at my blog i guess i didn't. I had three appointments on saturday, one was a rubber duckie, another was a USDA PRIME stamp on a mans butt (yes, really, haha) and a butterfly.

I only have two pictures here, as i forgot to take a photograph of the ass tattoo. It was actually really fun, haha! he had a pretty good sense of humor. anywho, his wife got the rubber duck. That one was definitely a new experience. It was like the second the needle touched her, she started to swell up. So i took the knowledge that my boss gave me way back when i first started, and got in and out as fast as i could while still giving her a clean tattoo (or at least trying to anyway). Here's the pictures of the butterfly and the rubber duck.

5/6/11

Here's a few more tattoo's that i've done recently. The kanji is the final one for the kid's set of three that i've done, and the second rose is on the same woman who i did the first one on, this is just on the opposite side of her chest. The bee was fun to do, although the gray top half of the bee is driving me nuts, as i should of one more with it, i think all in all its not bad. I tried to be a little bit creative with it, and try something new. The mom and dad was on a young womans wrists, obviously noticeable from the picture, lol. Im not happy with the dad one, as i made the lines too fat in that last d, and tried to blend it a bit more by bolding the other letters a bit more. I could of done a better job, but i was worried about just continuing effing it up and the letters just becoming block letters.

Enjoy.

5/3/11

Today was a very good day. Did this little butterfly tattoo on the woman I did the second witch hat on. She's a lot of fun to work with. She originally wanted to get this teddy bear tattoo, but she decided against it last minute and we went with the butterfly instead. Enjoy!

5/2/11

Here's a few more tattoos ive done recently. I'm getting better at blending my colors more smoothly, less abruptly. The Rose was fun to do, as it was the first flower i've actually done during this apprenticeship. I'm surprised at that actually, that i hadn't gotten more "i want a flower" requests, lol. The lettering on the wrist was a change of pace, as all the lettering I've done so far has been VERY basic. I used a 5 liner, to try and get the areas that went from fat to thin easier. The witch hat was on the best friends foot of the one i did a few days ago. She wanted purples and pinks instead of the blues. Im not nearly as happy with this one as i am the first one, as i didn't get to shade as much as i wanted to around that swirl hook type deal at the bottom (she'd had enough) So she's coming in again at some point for something else, and im going to finish it then.

4/28/11

Not feeling well today, physically I mean. Ron tattooed me today, which was totally awesome! Im amazed every time i look at it :) :) anywho, Here's some tattoos ive done this week. A few notes on some of them --

The bird - That seafoam doesn't at all look solid in this picture. I can't tell or not whether he's bleeding through, or it just isn't solid...it looked solid when before i decided to wrap him up and send him off. He's going to stop in when its healed, so we'll see.

The larger Kanji -- He wanted it to look almost like graffiti. "Like you took a fat marker to it". I wish i could of faded out the purple, for more of a subtle look, but hey, client wants what they want, right?

The paw print -- I finished it in 20 mintues..that kid took solid black like none i've done before, either that or i've just gotten the hang of solid black, lol.

The feet stars -- They were some pretty shitty star tattoos on her feet. She wanted me to make them look more like "stars" and to fill them in black. we did a dark purple around them, probably cant really tell from the picture. She had a green around them, so the dark purple covered it up pretty okay.  The two pictures are the before and after.

Well, enjoy.

4/27/11

Here's two tattoos i did yesterday. Man..my black and gray definitely needs a lot of work >.< tried no outline, but then started to lose my stencil in the middle and ended up outlining parts of the bioshock splicer mask inside.

4/22/11

Today was pretty quiet. I did a skeleton key tattoo this afternoon, and it turned out pretty good if i do say so myself :) Still not super duper clean, but i'll get there. I don't have a picture to show you, as i couldn't get my camera to focus on the damn thing. I think its time to buy a new camera :P I had two more appointments starting at 4:00, but neither showed. I was fairly surprised, as i had tattooed one of them before, and he called me yesterday to confirm the appointment. Meh, maybe something came up. I've got a bunch of appointments for next week, which is totally awesome. As much as i love getting so many people in here, im assuming there will come a time where i'll be eager to take that flyer down, as im getting all sorts of..interesting..people.. haha.  Learning is learning right! always a good thing! Did some drawing for appointments next week, and now i've got to get some work done around the shop for tomorrow. Till next time!

-Melanie

4/21/11

Been a busy week! I counted my consent forms, and i've had 13 tattoo's this week! I think im finally starting to get the hang of this..i mean, still definitely far from perfect, but im getting there! Here's the photo's.

I'll post more later!

4/16/11

Today was going to be a really, really good day. I've been psyched all week about today.


Too bad it didn't turn out as I had hoped.

4/15/11

Today I had two appointments, and one walk in (saw my flyer at a store), so three total. Did my first Kanji symbol today, and i know its the first of many to come! Im actually excited about that, haha! Also colored in the angry monkey from the family guy that i outlined a few weeks ago, and did some initials on a guys arm. Im definitely so much more confident in myself than i used to be. Each one went smoothly, except for a small bump in the road with the kanji, which was just trying to find a good way to stretch the skin in that area. I eventually figured it out, so hurrah! Here at the tattoos.

4/13/11

Slow day today. Haven't really accomplished much of anything other than daily shop stuff, and a little bit of drawing. Think im just recovering from last night (yesterday was my birthday). Yesterday was probably one of the best birthdays i've had in awhile. The guys at the shop were great..They all pitched in for some pretty rad gifts, and were just extra nice to me..really made me feel "special", lol, as gay as that may sound. Ron let me go early for the day to go out to dinner with my husband, which was really awesome of him. Anyhow, I'm rambling. I've got some cleaning up and setting up to do for tomorrow. Till next time.

-melanie.

4/8/11

Today was a really good day :) Totally flipped from yesterday, lol. I had three tattoo appointments today, and all three went fairly well. I also set up more appointments for next week, all thanks to the fliers that have been put up! I had trouble with the fox, because after thinking i was finished with the dark, i did the white in the tail, but noticed some spots i needed to hit with the red again..so the white became muddied up by wiping the red over it like a dummy >.< definately wont be letting that happen again..hopefully some of it might fall out with the healing process. Here's the pictures!

4/7/11

I don't know what it is about today, but I just can't seem to pick myself up. I've just constantly been beating myself up, and not even just with the tattoo's i did today, but everything. My physical, emotional, and work related self. I've just been down. I don't know. What really made it worse was the two tattoos i did today. and yeah, i know that nothing that i pump out is going to be great right now, let alone good. The clients were very happy with them, but i just sat there and nit picked myself to death over it. I feel like a crap tattoo factory. I know its a process, i know im going to suck for quite some time, i know that im not just going to be "Poof! IM GREAT!" I get it, and usually im just fine with that, but not today. I struggled with my lines, i struggled with the colors and shading, i struggled with myself. I need to stop doing this. I know tomorrow, I'll be just fine, and come back in with a smile on my face and a positive attitude. I dont know...today just sucks.

Im such a Debbie Downer. lol.

Here's one of the tattoo's. I forgot to take a picture of the other, as i was rushing to tear down my station to set up for this one..slapped myself in the forhead for forgetting to take a picture. ah well.. luckily she works at the Circle K that i regularly go to, so i can get one later.

4/5/11

Today someone i tattooed when i first started brought in his cousin for me to give him his first tattoo :) They're two really cool guys, and had me laughing the whole time. Only problem i ran into, is that the tattoo itself was in his outer bicep, and he kept clenching his fist and shaking. I would stop and pull back when he started to do this, and ask him to try and relax as much as possible. He would stop doing it for a few minutes, and then start again without realizing he was doing so.

anyway -- For the most part I feel as if the tattoo turned out Okay. It's not up to my standards, which i know nothing will be up to my standards for a long time. By the way, parallel lines can suck it! haha. Here's the tattoo.

Today I made up some flyers to post around the neighborhood advertising my offer for a free tattoo while during my apprenticeship. I made sure to state ALL requirements in this, as to try and push out any possibility for people to come in here and try to take advantage of me. I posted them this morning, and someone actually came in today! It was kind of awesome :) Hopefully the flyers work out well, as i've pretty much washed my hands of craigslist. Thanks for the idea Ron ;D and thank you for pushing me to advertise myself more.
Till tomorrow!

BLARGH!

Both my appointments for today sent me emails to cancel.. and one appointment i had on tuesday never showed up. C'mon people! Its free! >.<

3/30/11

Pretty quiet day at the shop. Did some drawing, working on light sources and such, and using different colors for highlights other than just white.

also -- Its fucking snowing. >.<


Till tomorrow!

3/26/11

Today was a good day! I did two tattoo's today, spur of the moment. :) My long time best friend dana, came in with her dad today, and i got to work on them! Dana has some kinda not so great tattoos on her feet, so i got to rework one of them today. She wasn't able to sit for all the recolor -- but we were able to work on the outline and get it all straightened out. Following that, i tattooed her father, The infamous Denny, and gave him the angry monkey from Family guy :) My lines are getting better, which made me super happy. I left work in a fantastic mood today, finally a little bit proud of myself. Here's the pictures!

3/26/11

Haven't posted in awhile. I just continue to manage to forget about this thing, haha. It'll eventually catch onto my daily routine. anywho --


I got to tattoo my friend jon yesterday. He has this horrible fear of needles, but I was able to getting him nice and relaxed, especially when i showed him the tattoo needles themselves, and how deep they actually go, which isnt much. He was pretty relieved after seeing that, haha. He wanted one of those melt tattoos, so I drew one up for him. It was a character grilled cheese, with a "im a rockstar" face, playing a guitar. I was so proud of myself by how my lines looked. They were clean, and not shakey, it was awesome. The shading on the other hand was a bit aggravating. I had this whole game plan in my head of what i was going to do with it in color, as that's what he had originally asked for. Well, once i finished the outline, he decided he wanted to go black and gray. I thought for a few minutes i how i would do this, got a mental picture, and went to work. The guitar and the grilled cheese itself ended up being around the same shade, and i wasn't sure how to fix that without going any darker, as it was already a bit darker than i would of liked it to be. Then my saving grace walks in my office (The bossman, Ron :) ) and took a look at it, told me where to put some white highlights on the guitar itself, to break the two apart. It looked so much better after that was done. Thanks Ron! <3

I grilled the guys some burgers and such yesterday in my downtime. Ron has a grill up here, and he buys steak, chicken, and burgers for us all the time, which is really really nice of him. I wish he felt more appreciated sometimes, less taken advantage of. Anywho, getting off subject here. So I'm the shop cook :) I love getting to cook for these guys, as its a huge passion of mine. I don't get to cook much at home anymore, minus sundays and mondays, so it's nice getting to do it up here, especially that they always compliment the food i make.  If we had a stove up here...good lord. These guys would be so fat... hahaha. I would constantly be making breakfast and such.

Might get to tattoo my best friend dana today. I'll have to ask the bossman when he comes in if that's alright. Im really excited for him to meet her, as i talk about her quite a bit.

Well, think I'm going to go draw for a few hours before the guys get here and the shop opens. Have a nice day!

3/21/11

I haven't posted in awhile! Still trying to get used to posting in this thing everyday -- or at least every other day. Last week was a good week. I got the chance to tattoo Ray. (he's the kid that works our lobby) Which was really exciting for me, as this guy is practically covered in tattoos, and i thought that by the time i was good enough where he'd let me tattoo him, all he would have left would be a finger. haha.

So I tattooed a banana on his back calf. Just a small one. Sadly at the moment I don't have a picture to show you :( we weren't able to finish the background behind it, as we were under a bit of a time crunch. So as soon as he's all healed up, and I finish the background, I'll post a picture! It was tons of fun, and I can't wait to finish that thing.

This week kind of stinks appointment wise, I've emailed out sketches to people, but haven't heard back. Emailed them again asking if they had a chance to take a look at them, but still haven't heard anything :(

This weekend with the husband and kids was nice. We went on sunday to get some professional pictures taken of the girls, and for Olivia's one year picture. They turned out really nice :) Maybe I'll post one when they come in.

Well, I've got some house cleaning and drawing and such to do before the day is over. Till tomorrow!

3/17/11

Happy Saint Patricks day!

So my starfish lady cancelled :( She sent me a big long email apologising up and down, worried about an allergic reaction to the red pigmented ink. (her son is heavily tattooed, and raised concern about her allergies) so no starfish tattoo :( Totally understandable though, i'd prefer she not take that risk, and i'd rather not take that risk either. Im going to repost my craigslist ad again today, and do it as many times as i have to (Someone keeps flagging it and it gets removed..it hasn't been lasting even 10 minutes at a time anymore) in order to try and fill up all next week. I think these big long gaps of not getting to practice is definately hindering my progress.

I think maybe i'll tattoo myself today to try and get some practice. Im not a big fan of tattooing myself..but hey, do what you have to do right? Ive got this unfinished lily flower on my ankle anyway thats been bugging the shit out of me, haha. Hopefully i can get more people in...or I'm going to end up with full leg sleeves! haha.

Here's to a good day! Hope you all have a nice one as well!

3/15/11

My last post was fairly depressing. I beat myself up waaaayy too much, and I appreciate all of the reassuring comments..you guys are great. :)

Today was a fairly quiet day. The past few weeks in the shop, things have been awesome. Everyone's been in a great mood. Laughing, joking around, and just flat out having fun. Its like all the winter blue's have lifted, and everyone's just...happy. Today I watched my boss do this black and grey reaper tattoo. Watching him work is pretty amazing, seeing how much he enjoy's it, and how passionate he is about it. He left fairly early, so I set to work on some drawing and shop related things. Toran (an artist here) said that he would cover up this god awful tattoo I have smack dab in the middle of my chest (piss poor mistake at 17 years old..) if I were to get creative and draw up something i'd like. I spent a few hours trying to figure out what might look good there, and would work well as a cover up. Shit's harder than i thought it would be, haha. I guess its different when its going to be permanent on MY body.

I have an appointment tomorrow to do this little starfish tattoo. She wants it to look sort of like a henna tattoo, so im going to fiddle around with it tonight at home and see what I can do with it. Going to make sure i wake up with a positive outlook tomorrow, and everything else will just fall into place. Im going to relax, breathe, and just go with it. No freaking out, no beating myself up, none of that crap.

...Jim is totally rocking out to Duran Duran "come undone" in the back room. Earlier it was Belinda Carlisle (or however its spelled) "Heaven is a place on earth". lol, I love this place. hahaha

3/11/11

I finally had an appointment today, a whole week without a single one. I was totally excited to do this though, i spent a good part of last night shading this tattoo in multiple ways to see what i could do with it. Origionally this tattoo was going to be solid black (as the client wanted it this way) but i wanted to try and convince her out of it, and show her how cool and different this could look. I wanted to play with this, and have fun with it. Sadly she wasn't into doing any color, or any cool swirly smoke like backgrounds which i had drawn up as an option. I started to do my usual "beating myself up" and then thought about a movie that my boss had me watch last night, which was all about positive thinking. So i perked up, and went into it with a smile and high hopes. I was going to make this tattoo as cool as i could possibly do with what she would allow me to do.

I was able to convince her into shading it out a bit with black and grey, with some white highlights. I stood her up, and put the stencil on. Once i got the machines and inks all set up, i went to work. My first line was shaky as hell. I started to get a little bit frustraited with myself, and then my next line was shaky as hell and didn't become a one pass solid line. I stopped for a second, pretending as if i was adjusting my machine, just to try and get myself in that positive mindset. I started again, the next few lines went in fairly easily. I was struggling a bit with her skin, as she was older and had little elasticity to her skin. One of my biggest flaws is getting a good stretch.

I was determined to show my boss that i am capable of being put on the floor for small things come spring. I think i failed. I think once again i overthought it, and beat myself up. Why do i keep doing this? I was so excited about this, i was in such a good mood, and wanted to have fun with it. Maybe im just beating myself up too much right now with this. This is a learning experience. I am learning. I will get this. I can do this.

Tomorrow is a new day, and once again i'll welcome it with a smiling face, and positive thinking.

3/10/11

Today was a pretty good day. Although I had kind of a crappy week appointment wise, Ive had the chance to do a few other things. Been working on some drawings of certain styles i am unfamiliar and uncomfortable with, to try and expand my horizons artistic wise. I want to be able to do almost anything a client might ask for -- and have my own spin on it. I don't want to  be confined to flowers..and pretty girly things, haha. My boss has a huge arsenal of books for reference, and educational dvd's, which is totally awesome.

Alsooooooo! I got my machines today! Thanks to my wonderful boss Ron :) Im so excited... i walked into my room and put them on my counter, then just stood in my room for a few minutes looking around. It finally struck me..im really, really doing this. I have my own inks..my own machines..my own office.. i mean, i still need to finish putting my own touches in there decoration wise, but man..Its an awesome feeling. My name is going to be on that door some day. I'll have my own buisness card some day.. I'll be getting to do what I've always wanted to do. It's almost hard to believe sometimes. haha. Thanks Ron..really. Thank you for everything, thank you for giving me this opportunity, and showing me everything you know. Thank you for being so patient with me, and inspiring me to become more than just average. You're an amazing person, never let anyone make you feel otherwise :)

Anywho -- I need to get ready to close the shop for the night. I've got an appointment tomorrow, and this time, im not going to hold myself back. Im just going to relax and have fun with it.

Till tomorrow!

3/4/11

I got to meet this lovely couple today, and tattoo the husband. (I'll be tattooing the wife next week)
During my apprenticeship tattoo's from me are free of charge, but there are many stipulations that go along with it, such as being very simple in detail, and about 2inches by 2inches in size, thus im a little bit limited when it comes to certain things. Which is exactly what i need at this stage, as i need to learn to crawl before i walk.

The origional idea for this, was that the helm was supposed to be solid black. Its eventually going to be a larger tattoo, this is just part of it. I convinced him into shading it like an actual helmet in black and grey, instead of the solid black, as i personally thought it would look much better, and i need to work on my shading and blending.

Looking at it now i can see all the flaws. My lines definately need more work. I could of done much more with this than i ended up doing. In the end i was nervous about it looking stupid, so i played it safe, which i should not have done. I need to take more risks. I know this could of looked so much cooler than it ended up being. I need to quit holding myself back and settling with something normal and dull, and try to do something with each and every tattoo to make it different, and interesting. I know im capable of this, and i know its frustrating for my boss to look at each and every tattoo ive done, and see that i've just played it safe. He knows what im capable of, and ive just been holding myself back. well...Here's the tattoo.

Tattoo Apprenticeship.

Hrm..blogging. I can't say that i've ever done this before, but my boss see's it as a good way to document my progress through my Tattoo apprenticeship, and through my tattoo career. I think it's a pretty good idea, and am willing to give it a shot. This Blog will be something i can look back on to mistakes, progress, and watch myself become more and more experienced in the tattoo field.  Kind of exciting. :) First i'll tell you a little bit about myself.

My name is Melanie, and I am a first year tattoo apprentice. Ive been at this shop going on six months now, and am surrounded by very talented artists. This is the most exciting, yet frustraiting thing I have ever done. It's almost like drawing all over again, and factoring in so many other things than just drawing on paper. I am married, and a mother of two. I am 25 years old (going on 26 next month...oh boy. closer to 30!) and can be a bit shy when first meeting me, but i warm up quickly. Other than that, im pretty easy going, and love art. Some of my favorite artists consist of John Dyer Baizley, Mucha, Boris Valejo, Dali, just to name a few. Im a big fan of anything fantasy.

Ive been drawing for the better part of my life. I remember hiding inside my closet, and drawing on the wall when i was 5 years old, so that my mother wouldn't find it. Everyone always pushed me to do something great with my artwork, and in my eyes, this is it.

Here we go :)