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By infmom, October 19, 2008 11:58 am

While I’m not a regular watcher of “LA Ink,” I do tune it in from time to time, and I watched “Miami Ink” while Kat Von D was working there.

Kat does excellent fine-line portrait work.   I must admit that up till the time I saw what she could do, I was definitely not a fan of tattoo portraits.   Maybe because I’d never seen a really good one.   It always seemed that the pictures might have looked good when drawn on paper, but when translated to skin they were distotred and amateur-artist-looking.   I couldn’t understand why someone would want to honor someone else by putting a mediocre junior-high-art-class-looking drawing on their skin.

Transferring a drawing on flat paper to the curved surface of someone’s body requires a certain amount of adjustment and talent.   And of course a tattoo needle is nowhere near as forgiving as a pencil, and you can’t just go back and erase your mistakes.   But does that account for all the sappy-looking tattoo portrait art out there?   I saw some fairly mediocre portraits turn up on “Miami Ink” and the recipients always said they were pleased, but was that just for the TV cameras?   Who knows?

I’ve even seen portraits of “Jesus” (the standardized Western portrait of a man who certainly wasn’t the blonde-haired, handsome dude used to represent him) that look bad enough that they could be taken for mockery, not faith.

The Total Tattoo Book includes a photo of a man’s back completely covered by a portrait of Charles Lindbergh, which left me wondering why someone would pay good money for something like that.   Of course, my opinion of LIndbergh and his politics might color my opinion a bit.  

What do you think about tattoo portraits?   Do you have one?   Whom does it honor, and who did the work?

photo credit: R.O.K.E.N

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By infmom, August 24, 2007 1:22 pm

One of our cats died early Thursday morning, after a long illness.

And thus, today’s entry is about one of the most profoundly personal of all tattoos, one designed as a memorial for a lost loved one. From the simple addition of someone’s name, to something as elaborate as my nephew’s back piece that serves as a memorial for his fallen colleagues in Iraq and Afghanistan, the placement of an image to honor the loved and lost can be among the most satisfying of decorations.

It is important, though, in the decision to get a memorial tattoo, that one not act too much in haste. Taking proper time to think, consider, and allow the first sharp pain of the loss to die away a bit is essential to getting the very best design.

Start by making a list of all the things that would serve to remind you of your lost loved one. Set the list aside for a while (adding to it if you happen to think of something else). Come back to it in a month or so and reconsider. (Your ink will last forever, so waiting and thinking carefully first won’t hurt, and can really help make the design the absolute best.)

Would a portrait be appropriate? You will need to find an artist who specializes in portrait work, for the best results. Would a picture of something else do better? Would it be enough to just have a simple “In Loving Memory” with the person’s or pet’s name and dates? How large a design do you want, and where should it best be placed? Even more so than with other designs, a memorial should be the product of careful consideration.

My dragon tattoo is in honor of my grandmother, and it took me about a year of thinking, drawing, and re-drawing to get the design perfected. I didn’t put her name on it, but I did have the artist add a very tiny Chinese character for “woman” underneath. When a Chinese friend saw the tattoo for the first time, he said “Oh, it’s a GIRL dragon.” I’m sure my grandmother, who always thought that she was the reincarnation of a 9th century Chinese poet, would have smiled at that.

This blog, by the way, is partly my memorial to our cat. Her name was Calypso, and she was a calico, and I often called her “Multicolor” in honor of her lovely fur.

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