Tattoosday Goes to L.A. - Max's First Tattoo for Mom

On my way back to the airport last week, my father and I had lunch at La Sirena Grill in El Segundo.

The meal was delicious, and I'll certainly be raving about their spicy BBQ duck tamale for quite some time.

As an added bonus, our waiter, Max, had plenty of visible tattoos and, even better, he shared one with me to post here on Tattoosday:

Max explained that this was his first tattoo and he went big in honor of his mother, who is a cancer survivor. BCB in the banner are her initials, and the word "Láidir" is Gaelic for "strong".

This tattoo was done by Baby Ray at Bob & Charlie Roberts' Spotlight Tattoo on Melrose in Los Angeles.

Thanks to Max for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Tattoosday Goes to L.A. - Javie's Sublime Tattoo

On my recent trip to Los Angeles, I popped in and talked to a few of the artists in San Pedro's Ace of Hearts Tattoo.

Fortunately for me, they were also in the sharing mood. Check out this piece on the upper right arm of artist Javie Dev:

This awesome tattoo was an appropriate one to feature, as Southern Californians would attest. The work refers to the ska/punk band Sublime, who hail from neighboring Long Beach.

Their debut album, 40 Oz. to Freedom, featured this cover art:

What makes this tattoo particularly special is that Javie got it from Opie Ortiz, the artist who designed the album cover. Opie was one of Javie's mentors and did the tattoo at American Beauty Tattoo Parlor in Sunset Beach.

Thanks to Javie for sharing this awesome tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Tattoosday Goes to L.A. - Vanessa's Sugar Skull by Joe Truck

On my recent trip to Los Angeles, even though I was in town for only a few days, I wanted to find some time to visit a tattoo shop. Of course, with L.A. being one of the "most tattooed cities in America," the challenge wasn't finding a shop, but deciding from among several to visit nearby. I was staying on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and there are a host of establishments in the Hermosa Beach/Redondo Beach/Gardena/San Pedro/Torrance.

Out of respect to shop owners and the artists, I didn't want to just drop in unannounced, so I reached out ahead of time to see if anyone would be open to coming in for a visit. Fortunately, I found one shop with a New York City connection, Ace of Hearts Tattoo in San Pedro. It's proprietor, Joe Truck, is from the Big Apple and he was open to me stopping by.

Last Monday afternoon, I stopped in the shop, only to discover that my timing was off. Joe wasn't in. The shop was impressive, however. It was well-lit, clean, and very spacious. And not only were the staff friendly,  they each shared some of their own ink with me for Tattoosday.

For example, the piercer, Vanessa, offered up this sugar skull on her forearm that was tattooed by Joe Truck:

Vanessa said that she got this from Joe after she started working at the shop. As I've said many times before on Tattoosday, sugar skulls are a lot like snowflakes, even though they're basically the same, there are never any two exactly alike, and it's always cool to see how many different ways they can be done.

In addition to Vanessa, I also spoke to two of the tattoo artists in the shop, but you'll have to wait for future posts to see what they had to share.

Thanks to Vanessa for sharing her sugar skull with us on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Tattoosday Goes to L.A. - Jonathan Shares a Winged Dandy

I recently took a quick trip to California and had a chance to do some inkspotting along the way. There's nothing like breaking a winter slump like going to warmer climes!

My luck started at the airport, JFK Terminal 2, where I met Jonathan, who was happy to share this piece from his forearm:

The piece wraps around the arm a bit, so I did my best to collage the whole tattoo:

Jonathan is a graduate student in New York, getting his PhD. in Literature, with an emphasis on Queer Theory. He has three tattoos and they all feature these figures of Victorian Dandies.

All his work is done by Cris Cleen at Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn. Jonathan told me that he liked Cleen's work with hybrids and loved his design of butterfly wings. This flying dandy is the end result.

Thanks to Jonathan for sharing his cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Re-Post: Happy Birthday Edward Gorey!

To those of you who pay attention to this sort of thing, today's Google doodle honors the artist and illustrator Edward Gorey.

Over the years, we've featured four people with Gorey tattoos and I wanted to re-post one of them in honor of what would have been Gorey's 88th birthday.

Here, from 2010, is my favorite post of the ones we've featured:

I met Missy on the corner of 23rd and 7th back in the beginning of September and she shared her two tattoos, on both biceps.Her right arm bears this piece:

and her left shoulder hosts this cool image:

 

These images may seem familiar, because they are based on Edward Gorey's Alphabet.

Missy has the two pieces representing her initials, M and N. The right arm represents "M": 

And the left arm represents the "N" for her last initial:

Missy got these tattoos in Santa Cruz about ten years ago.

Thanks to Missy for sharing her cool Gorey tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!
















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To see all four Gorey posts, click this link.

Thanks again to Missy for sharing and, if you haven't seen Gorey's work, today would be a great day to start exploring this amazingly funny and dark artist!

This entry is ©2010, 2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

My Anatomical Heart Dog Tag from Eddystone Designs!

Just got my Anatomical Heart Dog Tag in the mail from Eddystone Designs and thought I'd share:

They even personally engraved it for me!

We here at Tattoosday and the good folks at Eddsytone wanted to thank everyone again for entering the giveaway we ran last week.

As a token of thanks to Tattoosday readers, Eddystone is offering a discount for anyone buying their products (including these cool color-laser-engraved titanium pendants and dog tags).

If you enter "Tat00Sday" in the cart stage of the checkout you will receive a 20% off discount for all purchases.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Re-Post: Sweethearts for My Sweetheart

Back in 2010, Valentine's fell on a Sunday, which provided a excellent opportunity for my lovely wife Melanie to add to her tattoo collection. A lot of shops do special day promotions for the budget-minded, although the trend seems to be moving away from that. 

On this Valentine's Day, we here at Tattoosday are re-visiting that occasion three years ago. Please Note: Thicker Than Water, the shop involved, is NOT doing the promotion this year. I did find shops in San Diego (Nittis Tattoo locations) that are doing it this year, but I'm not aware of any NYC-based specials. 

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So what does an inkblogger get his sweetheart on Valentine's Day?

Why, a love-themed tattoo, of course.

Lucky me, the good folks over at Thicker than Water Tattoo had a Cupid special, $14 tattoos on February 14.


A lot like the Dare Devil Tattoo Friday the 13th Special (one of which is documented here), the lucky tattoo recipient can choose from an assortment of day-themed flash.


Here's what my lovely bride Melanie had to choose from:


When we got to the shop, Melanie signed in #53, and they were averaging a dozen or so per hour, so we knew we had a little bit of a wait.

I specifically selected Shon Lindauer, since he did such an awesome job with my tiger tattoo.

It was nice that Melanie got to meet Shon and the piece she selected was one that he had drawn up.

He tattooed her in the middle of the back and took just about fifteen minutes:


She was very happy with the end result:


When we left around 3:45, the waiting list was over a hundred, so they looked like they had a long night ahead of them.

Thanks to Shon and the staff at Thicker Than Water for another great tattoo experience!

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If you're looking for Shon, he is currently settling down at his new shop, Queen Street Tattoo in Honolulu!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

This entry is ©2010, 2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.