I'm going to Europe

Oh boy I'm excited, I'm going to Amsterdam...hookers and weed enough said? Well actually what is taking me to the Netherlands is my second piece(tattoo.) Why, all the way to the Netherlands just for a tattoo? I had such an amazing experience with Adrian Dominic and my first piece turned out so amazing. I knew that I wanted to start my next piece as soon as possible! The person for the the task? drum roll please...Markus Lenhard!


I'm very excited and anxious to let Markus do his thing on my skin. I learned about Markus through Adrian. He does amazing mind blowing tattoos. Has an incredible sense for realism and applies it to his art and tattoos very well. I feel very lucky that we have an appointment booked.
I'm sure your wondering what is he gonna tattoo? I'm pleased to say I don't really know. I collect bio/organic mechanical esque tattoos. Call it what you will it is very fine abstract art in skin. So I try to give the artist as much freedom as possible. so with that said Markus does bio mechanical tattoos very very well.

*this tattoo is not mine*

we have chatted and planned our appointment out. This is a roughly what is going to happen with me and Markus. We are tattooing my entire left arm! Yes, full sleeve. We are planning on knocking out this piece in four to five days We are spending an whole entire day with the design and planning. Markus will complete a finished piece of art before it goes to skin. I love seeing the artists concept because it always make for an interesting tattoo and usually will stand alone as amazing art! The plan is to tattoo for three maybe four days. We will do as much work as I can handle. Yes, these long tattoo sessions can be very painful to say the least. No, I do not take anything to ease the pain. With how large the piece is and the short time span we have. It is going to be a how long I can last to finish our goal? I'm fairly confident that we will finish our goal and finish most of the piece with our first appointment. I'm sure I will need some good rest after all of this so I might just spend a whole day in a hotel after we finish?
I'm not just going for a tattoo. I'm gonna take full advantage of this trip. I'm gonna be acting all tourist American and traveling to Berlin and Pairs after I finish up with Markus. I have no clue what I'm going to do while I'm in these cites. I'm sure it will be an amazing and memorable experience that I will never forget! I leave January 24th 2010!

Pictures by Markus Lenhard http://www.myspace.com/luxaltera
http://www.toetagtattoo.com/

My thoughts and perspective

So I'm going to publicly proclaim myself as a tattoo collector. I absolutely love everything about tattooing. In a sort of way I would like to say it is an addiction. I know that it is very bad to proclaim this to the world but, I can explain myself. Since we are talking about vices I guess my tattooing would be like a group that will only do acid in Sedona Arizona during a planetary alignment? or Sleeping with just high end prostitutes. These are horrible comparison I know. I will try to explain how I feel about my collection and tell you about the rules.

As new tattoo collector I just finished my first piece and I'm about to start the second piece. I feel that my tattoos are not just tattoos. I look at them as pieces of art. So first rule I collect pieces. With this rule this will encompass more than just tattooing. I will elaborate more as you read on. Second rule is no letters, numbers, and symbols. I hope I stay firm with this rule I feel that words next to an artists work take away from the piece and can distort the emotion of the artist. these are the only set in stone rules.

So from the start I have had a very picky eye and I have a good sense with who tattoos well and who is not. I'm not in interested in American or Japaneses traditional for my collection although I feel there are some amazing artists that do that very very well. My taste for now is for the very abstract bio/organic mechanical styles. The way I have it planned out the majority of my collection will be fairly abstract with this style. Most of my pieces will have a theme or concept. but, I try hard steer away from this because once again I would like to give each artists piece as much freedom as possible. Each piece I feel should allow for the artists full vision. I feel that most of the ink on my body would be similar to an art collectors gallery.

I truly do spend awhile looking at as many pieces from an artist before I make a good or bad judgment. Yes, many people feel that I'm seeking tattoos from only famous tattooers. I will agree a little tiny bit. To agree I will say there are reason those people are very famous at tattooing. I more importantly look for the emotions the artist puts into each of his pieces and the passion for his skill be it tattooing or canvas, etc. Its easy to let just anybody throw down any piece and you will pay them about as much per hour as I will. I have discovered that people pay a lot of $$$ money for bad tattoos.

I hope all ways take pride in all the choices I make. I'm very selective about what I like I notice more than average.