Two for Tattoosday: Elise Remembers Paris and Shares a Cardinal

These next tattoos would not be here on Tattoosday were it not for signal problems at the Jay Street subway station in Brooklyn.

For it was an e-mail alert about those problems disrupting train service which sent me away from my normal routine and directed me last week to the Herald Square subway station to catch a D train.

It was there on the southbound platform that I met Elise who displayed some cool ink on her arms. We chatted a bit and, because her top partially obscured sections of her tattoos, she told me she'd email me photos. Not everybody who says that means it, or follows up, but Elise did not disappoint and sent me the following photos later that evening.

First, is this interesting tattoo on her upper right arm:

Elise calls this “Paris in a Woman,” which is inspired by the fact that she was born and raised in France. The idea of including the Parisian cityscape came from Charmaine Olivia, an artist based out of San Francisco. Elise included the Eiffel Tower in it. The tattoo was done by John Poverty, who tattoos out of Goose Tattoo in Brooklyn.

Lower on her right arm is this amazing bird tattoo:

Elise explained:

“The cardinal by Mike Adams [of True Sight Tattoo Company in Detroit] was inspired by family. Once all my siblings and I ‘flew the coop,’ my parents took up bird watching, and are now avid cardinal lovers.  Mike inked this out of Thicker Than Water in Manhattan, [where he] will have a short residency in the beginning of December.”

Work by Mike appeared over the summer on Tattoosday here.

Thanks again to Elise for sharing these wonderful tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Maria Shares a Valuable Wing

Last month I met Maria on the West 4th Street subway platform. She had this interesting tattoo on the upper right side of her back, and I was curious:

Maria explains:

"I'm a big gamer, and my favorite video game of all time is Super Mario Brothers 3. The P-Wing is the one item you always wanted to get."

Maria credited Rich Smith at Thicker Than Water Tattoo on the Lower East Side as the artist who gave her this wing.

My own appreciation for it it it's originality in contrast to the more common inking of angel wings on backs.

Thanks to Maria for sharing her wing with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Two for Tattoosday - Dave's Scalpflower and Bethany's Lonely Whale

A couple weeks back, I met Dave and Bethany outside of the Borders Penn Plaza in Manhattan. Both had amazing ink and shared some tattoos with us. Let's start with Dave's "scalpflower":

 

Dave explained that this floral tattoo on his scalp was inked by Mike Adams, who was doing a guest spot at Thicker Than Water in Manhattan.

Dave elaborated:

"We had talked about some ideas when I saw him [Mike Adams] at the Philadelphia Convention. We showed up [at Thicker than Water] and he just showed me some of the drawings of the tattoos he had recently done.

He had done another flower on someone else in the past week and I said 'Oh, let's do one of those.' He said, 'Yeah, that's awesome/ Let's do it.' "

Dave, who is approximately 70% covered in tattoos, had mostly been worked on by Tony Hundahl from Rock of Ages Tattoo in Austin, Texas. Hundahl has done both of Dave's sleeves (including the traditional segment pictured below), his chest, stomach, back, knees and one of his legs.

Dave added that, since moving to Washington D.C. recently, he started collecting work from other artists in the East.

Along with Dave, I met Bethany who, shared one of her more recent tattoos, this whale by Deno Jr.:

Deno Jr. works out of Circus Tattoo in Madrid, Spain, but had recently done a guest spot at Tattoo Paradise in D.C.

This tattoo is of this lonely whale, whose song is different from any other species, so it is an outcast, and she doesn't have a mate.

Thanks to Dave and Bethany for sharing their amazing tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Alex Shares a Floral Tattoo, Roots and All

Sometimes I see tattoos before I see people.

Back in July, for example, I approached a guy on the West 4th Street subway platform to ask him about this tattoo on his right forearm:

It was only after I said hello to him that I realized he was someone named Alex who lives in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.

In fact, Alex had a tattoo featured here back in 2009, after I stopped  him in the laundromat.

This floral tattoo is a representation of how a flower overcomes obstacles and pain to lay down roots, rises up, and blooms.

He draws the comparison to life, as nothing comes without hard work and bypassing obstacles.

The tattoo was created by Shon Lindauer at Thicker Than Water in Manhattan. Shon is the same artist that did the tiger on my calf. Other work from Thicker Than Water has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Alex for once again sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!

Ganesh Waits for the A Train

Actually, Kerry was waiting on the platform for the uptown A Train when I walked by at 34th Street.

How could I not stop and ask her about this tattoo:

This absolutely stunning depiction of the Hindu deity Ganesh took between eight and nine hours to complete.

Guy Ursitti at Thicker Than Water is the tattooist responsible for this work of art, the newest (at the time I met her) of Kerry's approximately fifty tattoos.

The detail in the tattoo is absolutely incredible.

Work from Thicker Than Water has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Kerry for sharing this amazing tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!