Tattoo Sleeve Session 4

So the pool cover was put on yesterday. This perfectly coincided with my first tattoo appointment of the off season. I have three appointments booked right now. Yesterday, November, and December. Yesterday we designed the top and got it stenciled, traced, and started. We hope to be able to finish the coloring in in the next two long sessions. I made a deal with my husband that I wouldn’t schedule any new appointments in exchange for letting me build the deck this summer. When I restore my savings from the deck cost, I can schedule more appointments to finish the tattoo. It will have more to beef up the back of my arm and go on down my forearm as well. It’s a great motivation to spend less!

We started texting back and forth Friday night about the design. I know this is how every tattoo artist does it. You schedule your appointment a year in advance but they don’t sketch it until the night before which is insanely stressful. She sent me this:

I had notes. Why re the berries so big? They’re as big as Jack’s eyes! Bigger, actually! I looked down at my arm and his eyes are pretty big. But she said that if we went any smaller they wouldn’t read as berries. Also a red rose? *wretching noises* Can you get more stereotypical tattoo? In her defense, I get where she got it though. The berries were from my wedding bouquet as are some of the flowers that will make an appearance below the elbow. My bouquet had red and orange roses in it. Red roses are romantic. That is the only sense that I like them in – pure love. When my husband gives me red roses, it’s romantic. That’s the only time I should ever see red roses (my favorite roses are actually the orange ones with a pink border).

So she decides to just redo the front completely. She nailed the back though. Look at those swirly vines!

I’m also real worried about that pumpkin lid there (Jack O Lantern lid). Even after I went and sacrificed one of my porch pumpkins to show her want I meant by Jack O Lantern Lid.

But I’m gonna have to trust her on that. She told me to trust her so fine. She’s got an art degree and way too many years of tattooing under her belt. Still, now we’re in the evening before my tattoo and don’t have a front! So she’s like well what flowers DO you like? Fuck. So I’m frantically googling “Fall flowers” over here and sending her pictures and names.

Well, the red poppies are from momma. She loved red poppies. She had already loved them, but then we went to Italy and she saw the fields of wild poppies in person. It was a memory and a connection and I loved to paint her poppies or give her poppies. Once, I even pulled over on the side of the road and picked a huge handfuls of wild poppies for her. The city had seeded them in the median as an alternative to mowing grass.

So red poppies. Who doesn’t love a fucking dahlia? K and I have even discussed getting matching dahlia tattoos in different colors. Fucking beautiful flowers. Oh and I love those yellow pompoms. Craspedia. AKA “Drumstick” or “Billy Button” flowers. I love when there’s like 3 tall ones in a mixed arrangement. I have some on my counter right now! So I’m just throwing flowers at her. Here’s some cosmos (I was actually thinking of reddish brown “chocolate cosmos”). However, cosmos come in a variety of colors so I was like hey, if you want to add colors, here. I mean the tattoo is looking very brown as it stands.

Then I waited anxiously. Very anxiously. Had I made her mad? WHAT’S HAPPENING?

Then she sends this:

First, note all the watermarks. Dude, I’ve paid you a ton of money. I have an appointment in like 15 hours. I’m not gonna steal your work. BUT

I kinda love it. Would I have EVER said put blue flowers in it? Fuck no. But I like them. It’s a very nice pop of color and contrast. And look at momma’s poppies and my yellow pompoms! She does have a good eye for color. We had a little more back and forth about the pumpkin lid. She smoothed it out a lot. But I’m just gonna have to trust.

I’m the one who wanted a Jack O Lantern lid. One, I’m not a super big flower person. Well, I mean I actually love flowers. Momma was an AVID gardener and we went to the botanical gardens almost weekly growing up. But like – pumpkins. I’m a pumpkin person. And I LOVE the 2 pumpkins she did. But they’re not hugely prominent. They’re kinda small. Like I need more pumpkin. So I thought — Jack O Lantern. I fucking love Halloween and Fall and carving pumpkins. But how can we put a Jack O Lantern in this gorgeous very artistic tattoo without it look cheesy? Then it hit me — Jack O Lantern LID. A nod to Jack O Lanterns. I AM A GENIUS. Anyway, we’ll see how she executes it. She reminds me that these pictures are just references. OK.

Saturday morning I wake up bright and early so I can eat before I head out. She’s two hours away and it’ll be past dinner time before I get home. Here’s the Saturday morning “before” shot. Note: I’ve bought two strapless bras for the healing process. We’re going hard with three months back to back, so it’ll need 3 months of no bra strap.

I watched “6 Underground” on Netflix while she worked. It was a good movie. I love Ryan Reynolds. While she was making the stencils she said we’d have to trace them out this time. Now, I did hate being a coloring book last time she did that. However, I had already decided I’d let her choose how to do it since these appointments are so close together. She was piecing together MULTIPLE stencils to follow my body contours. Plus doing some hand drawing where they connect. So she said this is just too much to do multiple times. Yeah, OK. So first she tattooed the stencils on:

Originally, there wasn’t supposed to be so much on my chest. Of course she disagreed and that this was always the case. I have photo evidence that it was not, but I aint picking fights with my artist. I actually like it. I despise that sleeves usually cut off at the shoulder where I call “the Barbie seam”. Like, if you have a cybernetic arm or a prosthetic, that shits gonna include your shoulder joint. So should your sleeve. So after studying the stencil for a long time… fuck it, let’s do it.

The outlining took ages. So we didn’t get as much coloring in done as I expected. Jack got his catholic halo (not that that’s the intention LOL — I just wanted a frame around him so he would really POP). It is solid green, but in the photos it looks very mottled. She was REALLY packing in the color (as she should), and my skin was angry. She commented on how pissed my skin was and that if it heals patchy, we might have to go over it again. I’m not worried. She also colored two more leaves and she did two of the blue cosmos. I kinda love these cosmos! She wants to go back and do more detail on the frame around Jack, but I’m not positive I want it.

So for reference, here it is this morning from front and back so you can see where it falls on my body:

The bats have not been abandoned, but they will not be stenciled. They will be hand placed. Also probably more on my back now and at least one that peeps up on my neck.

I’m THRILLED with where this is going. I’m in love with it. I got a little anxious when I showed husband. There was a lot of miscommunication about me have THREE appointments already scheduled (BEFORE the deck was ever started). Also that it would go further down my arm (was always the intention. In fact, it was originally suppose to wrap around my arm too). And I think the bats on the neck scares him. But like, they make amazing tattoo makeup now. The only time I’d ever need t cover it up would be like court or an interview. Hell, I can pop a zit cover over a small bat. It’s fine. His words were “It’s a lot.”

So that brought me down. But I get it. It IS a lot. Especially when 2 years ago I didn’t have any tattoos. Now I’m like, INK ME. But yall know me, I like to do it right. And to me, asymmetry is gorgeous in tattoos. And I love sleeves. I don’t like the patchwork look of tattoos placed wherever there is space (though, some people love that and I do think those sticker sleeves are adorable. Lets all just be happy with our ink).

I even took this picture to show Devon (though I did not). It’s all the work tank tops I bought this year:

Listen, I still kinda hate my big fat arms. BUT after that surgery, they don’t jiggle and sag so much. And I could have NEVER done something like this before. And I have LOVED this tattoo for almost a year now (yes, his face is a year healed in these pictures). I haven’t regretted it for one second. It took a part of me I hated and made it something I wanna show off. I keep telling people, I’m drawing your attention away from my bald spots to my cleavage and tattoos.

And I don’t like people, but damn I love all the comments people make about it. Do I want to see photos of your cat? I like cats. “Did you see her bad ass tattoo?” Heh. This is art. ON ME. On my ugly body. This and the tummy tuck and boobs were like the best decisions ever.

If I was willing to wear a wig and do my makeup, this would BY FAR be my hottest era.

My mother-in-law is gonna LOVE IT.