First Tattoo EVAR!

I know, I know. I wasn't planning on doing a "real" tattoo for a long time. But one of our good friends, Clint, was absolutely convinced that he wanted me to give him a tattoo on Sunday night. So after much protest, I decided "what the heck". If he wasn't worried about it, then why was I worrying so much. I plan on doing a lot more practice, but what better practice then to have a real go at it. I got a few pointers from one of Danny's other friends, Bo, who is a tattoo artist. He said "practice skin can only take you so far, you have to just do it". So...I did. Poor Clint. LOL.

I spent about the first 30-45 minutes trying to get my hand under control. It was shaking like I had been floating in some ice cold water. It was really annoying. Even after I got control of my nerves, the hand would still shake. Sheesh. Once I started the solid area, my hand calmed down and I was able to work a little better. The hardest thing for me so far has been to remember to keep my foot down on the pedal as I am tattooing. Once again – poor Clint! There were multiple times that my foot just released the pedal and I ended up catching him with a needle that wasn't moving. NO FUN for either of us, but especially for him. I feel really bad about it, but I was having to concentrate really hard and if I stopped thinking about keeping my foot down - well, it didn't stay down. DOH!

Oh, did I mention it is also a COVER UP!! LOL. Not only do I have no experience, but I was trying to do a cover-up tattoo. No idea what I've gotten my self into. The tattoo is a cross with a circle behind it. The circle was placed there mainly for cover-up, but it's actually a pretty cool design for something simple and fast.

So, I spent about 3 hours on his tattoo. We placed the stencil twice to get it in the right spot. I fumbled around with my shakey hand and then I did the outline and filled in the center portion of the cross. We decided to save the circle for this weekend since it was already getting late. And we wanted to see how what was already done was going to turn out. So I bandaged Clint's arm with some saran wrap and A&D ointment. While we were taking some pictures and saying our goodbyes, Clint's wife, Jessie, noticed that the top portion of the cross didn't quite match up with the bottom portion. Something none of us had noticed when it could have been fixed. UH OH!! Somehow the cross was skewed when we placed it the second time. And with the akward way Clint had to position his arm for me to do the tattooing, it didn't look like that until his arm was in it's normal position. I went back and checked the stencil - straight. I checked the progress pictures....sure enough - skewed. Not sure how it happened or how to prevent it in the future, but it's something I'll definitely be looking for in the future. Good thing is it should be a fairly easy fix by just adding some more to each side of the cross. We live and learn.

Once again - I knew I wasn't ready, but i think I learned more from just that three hour experience than I ever could have with practice skins and grapefruits. Thanks for being such a sport, MY CLINTON! We'll get it fixed up. Hopefully I can talk my foot into staying put on the pedal. I'll do some kegels or something. maybe that'll help. Ha Ha!

I'll post pictures once we're done.