"Today's a good day, and I'll tell you why: Most of the time, clients have something pretty specific in mind whether they know it or not, but I was basically given an open project on this one. The only structure was the starting point being a Fibonacci Spiral (geometric spiral that appears in nature i.e.- sea shells, hurricanes, galaxies). This design is a milestone for me. I've been cruising along, sticking to the mainstream "boundaries" of tattoo. The client wants a lion, they get a lion. They want a floral arrangement with names, they get just that. They are beautifully drawn, perfectly executed in tattoo, and the client is completely satisfied. However, starting primarily with this design, I'm venturing into a more open project where I have a lot of artistic license. This brings me to an unfamiliar and very enticing place. A place I feel stylistically terrified, without boundaries or guidelines, and completely free. Rarely do I travel into the realms of the not-easily-recognizable, and NEVER into the abstract... It's just not my thing... at least not until I dreamed of a design last night, woke up, and this poured out..."
-September 21st, 2009.
Here's the first sketch I came up with back in September:
Here's the revised sketch I reworked this Winter after reconnecting with Lauren:
To fit her right shoulder, the design was reversed and we started 2 weeks ago at Coil 12:
Session 2 complete. She'll likely need some zip-zap touch-ups and we might push the values in a few areas, but it's basically finished. After a total of 7 hours, today at the Coil 12 studio:
