Just TeeJay's Blog

Now that my kid is big and out of the house I no longer feel the need to be quite as much of a responsible adult. Basically it’s time for me to play a bit and figure out who I am besides Mom. One of the things that I knew all along that I would do was to get more heavily tattooed. When my daughter was small I didn’t want to be any more of the freak mom than I already was at school and functions. I figure that as parents we all do more than enough to embarrass our children while they are growing up. Now it doesn’t matter anymore. So in the last 6 months, I got another facial piercing, had my knuckles tattooed and booked an appointment to get my hand tattooed.

I had spent a lot of time thinking about who I wanted to tattoo my hand. It is a very visible place and not everyone who tattoos well can tattoo a hand well. In the end I decided to have Don create this tattoo for me. Don made my right sleeve for me about ten years ago and he had wanted to come further down the hand with it at that time and I wasn’t ready then.

We booked the appointment some time last year as both of us have pretty full schedules and it is difficult to find time that works for both of us. A few weeks before the appointment Don had emailled me and asked what I wanted to have put on my hand. I think that my response was good and vague and somewhere along the lines of – “Maybe one of those hook things with a glowy in the middle of it”. Really I trust him and wanted him to do something that he would have fun with. I wasn’t expecting any further input or conversations on it – just I would see what he had come up with I got there (he had photos of my hand). Much to my surprise the night before I left he sent me some rough sketches…

and asked for my input of them. I had a few comments and thoughts – nothing profound so I won’t bore you with them. I played around with the sketches in photoshop for a few minutes just to get a better feel for them.

Don wrote back again the next morning and I think that we could have gone back and forth some more if I didn’t have to get on the road in order to be in Pittsburgh for my appointment at 1:00. Besides that sort of thing is way easier to do in person than it is in email.

When I arrived (after the usual greeting and visiting stuff) we started to look through the sketches. Don had some new reference as well – one photo of a lotus and one of a lotus made up of crystals. With these new ideas we went back and forth – talked and sketched (OK, mostly Don sketched and I visited). This is what we came up with

Don stenciled and put this on and then busted out with the sharpies. to add more detail and decide what we were going to do with the rest of the space on my hand (gotta use it all!).

From there, some discussion about colors and contrast and the such and on to the ouchie part. I had a great time visiting with Don he is a great guy in addition to being a fantastic artist. Right now my hand is pretty swollen, but not too bad. I have the week off to recover and let it heal before I have to put a glove back on. Now I have to figure out what I am getting done next since I do not have another appointment booked anywhere for anything new. Don will be working on my sleeve touching up and updating in July – but I would like to get some new work done as well.

If you would like to check out more of Don’s work his website is http://www.bodyworks-tattoo.com/

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UPDATE

Here is a photo of my hand in June 2011 after the second pass has fully healed and settled in:

We are now working on brightening up some of the original sleeve as well. Hopefully one more sit on that some time in 2011 and I should be good for another 10 years or so!

~ by justteejay on March 31, 2010.

Posted in Art, tattoo
Tags: bio, don mcdonald, hand, lotus, tattoo