Bank Holiday Inking

I’m back from a lovely, but rather soggy, bank holiday weekend :) 

I will write more about the rest of the weekend later, once I’ve gotten round to uploading the photos, but I do have some bits I can share now.

I am halfway through a new book, thanks to a recommendation from Niki Murray on my previous post about books, and I’m really enjoying it. Hopefully I can do another write-up about these books once I’ve read some more – I’m not great at writing about books, but I’m hoping that practice will make improvements!

Currently reading

Also, the Glastonbury is finished!!! Yay!! I’m very happy with it, but I have had no opportunity for photos, so the proper post will have to wait – boo!! :(

Instead though, I can reveal my new ink! I am really really happy with it. It was once again done by the lovely Jessi at Black Rabbit Tattoo Collective in Newbury, Berkshire. Jessi’s artwork is fantastic, and she has a great technique with tattooing. My previous piece from her healed so well and so quickly, and while the watercolour technique does mean that it’s not tattooed so heavily and therefore the skin has less damage to it than a heavily shaded or coloured piece, I also think that her personal tattooing technique must be really good.    

On this occasion, my best friend and I got matching tattoos of an origami swan line drawing, with watercolour splashes on it. Jessi’s ability to create a watercolour effect with tattoos just blows me away! She is so talented :)

We chose the swan as, in my friend’s words, “Swans mate for life, and we’re mates for life!”  [I know that when swans mate it has a different meaning, but we had been searching for an idea, and by a long process of planning we decided that swans were the right image :)  ] We chose the origami as we both liked the style of the line drawing, and we both liked the watercolour effect, and so an idea was born! 

So here is the stencil on me, the red lines are where she freehand drew on guide lines for the watercolour elements:

Here is the work in progress on me….

And on my friend….

And here is the finished result!

With an extra close-up of mine, as it is a bit obscured by my top in the previous pic:

These pictures were taken straightaway, so they are still a bit red and swollen, but they will settle down beautifully! I will see my friend again in a couple of weeks, so I’m hoping we’ll remember to get another photo of them as they are more healed. We are both so happy with the results! So happy in fact that I already have my next appointment booked in – I have 2 very small black tattoos, and I’m going to have some splashes of colour added to them to brighten them up and make them more unique. I have to go to Newbury next week anyway, so it would be a shame not to make the most of the opportunity ;)

An old pic, but the subject of my next appointment...