easter

Well, I'm drawing like crazy. Even crazier than before. The owner of that tattoo shop called me tonight and asked me to do some drawing for him in exchange for work on my arm. As soon as he said, "I was wondering if you would do some drawing for me..." I was immediately like, "Yes." without even thinking about it first! I know that one of the reasons he's having me do this drawing is so that I can have an excuse to hang around at the shop and get to know people, which is awesome. He said that he really thinks I should be tattooing, so he's trying to think of something, or work something out. Which is really flattering. It makes me feel really good.

But omg, the drawing he has me doing is crazy! It's a *very* involved scene to cover a man's entire calf. I'm just supposed to draw the elements of the picture, and not really arrange them. But still, for my first tattoo drawing in like 5 years... a whole calf's worth of work? I can't believe it. Ane I really need to do well so the guys see that i can do this work! Oh, and I only have a couple days to do it!

The idea / design sounds a lot cooler than what I was used to doing back at my old apprenticeship. My old work was at a biker sort of shop, and all people ever wanted were roses, crosses, eagles, stupid Looney Toons, etc.; real simple stuff, generally. Actually, the best was when this guy named Greg used to come in with pages torn out of these really nasty porn magazines, and he's be like, "I want this girl on my leg, but please give her a little more pubic hair and make her tanlines more pronounced." and stuff like that. He was very specific about how he wanted his girls to look: "Now, do this one exactly like on the picture, but make the nipples bigger." He was really interesting. The guys thought he was really creepy, but I loved when he came in because he was so different. Plus then I got to draw naked ladies, which is always fun .

So... I get to go to the tattoo shop tomorrow and show the owner my preliminary sketches (which will get a lot better... my drawing skills are pretty rusty ) and hang out for a few hours while I draw. Then I can get feedback and a better idea of exactly what type of style the customer is looking for, etc. I'm very excited, but also nervous that my drawing skills won't come back as quickly as I want them to. Yes, nervous. I have butterflies in my stomach. But at least they're traditional Sailor Jerry butterflies, right?

Oh yeah... and it may be slightly awkward if the trial apprentice is there working at the same time... oh well!