Fresh Ink

When I was 19, totally on a whim, I drove up to Vancouver to Dark Star Tattoo and got a tattoo. It was my second, and I picked it out of a wall of flash minutes before I had it inked on my body for life.

Stupid.

First, no tattoo should be picked off of a wall. A tattoo should be - at least in my opinion - more of an internal expression than that.

Second, you should never get a tattoo without checking out someone's work from someone else.

As you may have guessed, the tattoo I ended up with was, while drawn decently, not all that great. It was a crescent moon, with 2 small stars, on the side of my calf, with initials under the stars for 2 good friends I'd lost in high school. At first, I did like this tattoo, but as it healed, it was just sorta, blah. No shading, heavy lines...and the moon was backwards! I have always wanted to cover it, but didn't really know what I would want to replace it with. Cover ups can be spendy, plus they have to be quite large, and so I went for what, 10 years, with this blah tattoo on my leg that I didn't really like.

After my property sold last month, I have had a bit of extra money and decided it was time for a cover up. I reached out to friends for tattoo artist referrals and talked to a few before actually deciding on Travis from Tron City over on Canyon Road. I went in for my consulation with almost no solid ideas, just a bunch of "would this work" type scenarios, for him to sort through. Tattoo artists amaze me, seriously. He asked me a series of questions about colors I like, shapes I prefer, my personality, etc...and then came up with an idea I absolutely loved in about 15 minutes. He traced the existing design and promised to work his magic before my appointment the following week, and I left. Since I was there on a good referral from a regular client of his, he didn't take a deposit or anything.

Monday rolled around and I was still not quite sure what I was going to end up with. I just don't picture a piece of art the way an artist does...he'd said, blah blah blah, bird, rose, blah blah...and that's all I had in my head. When I got to the shop, though, he had a beautiful stencil ready, and I just loved it. We talked about how it was going to cover the moon and the stars, what colors he'd use, and positioning, and he got started.

I tell you, this was the fastest tattoo, ever. It takes up my whole calf and still only took 90 minutes, I couldn't believe it.

Long story short, I am in love with the work he did. It is big, bold, colorful, and best of all, it is exactly what I was after!