Personally if I ever saw a nurse come to my room looking like this I would think …. well I had a good run, no regrets, and I lived life to the fullest. Fortunately this is just another tattoo I made for a client, who is a nurse. She didn’t just want a nurse’s badge or a caduceus image, she wanted something different. She had always wanted something day of the dead as well. So we incorporated the two and this is how it came out. Cheers
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Hello Friends. Once again it’s time for a little look into what we do at Oak City Tattoo. As well as tattooing, we are painters too. Not that we could make a living at it, but who can in these times. With this thought I have just written I based a painting off of the situation that is going on here in the USA. It’s based off of false bank loans and false managers signing the loans and the need for there to be transparency in our government and banks since it’s us who are paying with our lives and our love ones. The best thing about painting for me at least is that I have full ability to develope my thoughts and expressions and hope that they translate well. The best thing about art is everybody see’s it a different way, so on that note I hope you enjoy. I give you :
One flew from the cuckoo’s nest.
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I tattooed this eagle at the Cape Fear Tattoo Expo in April. Fun tattoo at a fun Expo. Thanks to Shaun Bushnell for inviting me to work with him at the show. Shaun does awesome Traditional American and Japanese tattoos, Check out his work www.facebook.com/shaunbushnell. I had the pleasure of working with Shaun at Blue Flame Tattoo.
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Lettering is one of the most popular request from clients especially people who are new to collecting tattoo art. This subject can be fun to design and tattoo but can also a be frustrating endeavor trying to fulfill the patrons exceptions. We strive to adorn people’s skin with a permanent marks that compliment and beautify the person. Script tattoos tend to look best when we keep the number of letters to a minimum. Minimal letters allow us to make the tattoo more decorative and stylized, also the tattoo will more likely look solid for the rest of your life as you and the tattoo ages. One to four words is ideal for a tattoo rather than an entire song or 1/3 of the bible. A person that has a complex direction with an excessive amount of words should consider a visual illustration instead of a paragraph. We are artist and we enjoy working with our clients to create art, not reproduce literary works. You’ll never see a book on display in an art museum.
These two ladies were a pleasure to work with. They had simple ideas that are very meaningful and they allowed me to get creative with their tattoos. I truly enjoyed working with them.
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I was happy to design and tattoo this custom foot tattoo of a venus flytrap that represents Christina’s home town at the beautiful Carolina coast. Christina was the ideal client, she sat through this tattoo without a the slightest flinch. She is one tuff Marine. Semper Fi. This is the second tattoo that I’ve done for my friend, She also has an impressive half sleeve by the talented Marco Sullivan.
“The Venus Flytrap (also Venus’s Flytrap or Venus’ Flytrap), Dionaea muscipula, is a carnivorous plant that catches and digests animal prey—mostly insects and arachnids. Its trapping structure is formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant’s leaves and is triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces. When an insect or spider crawling along the leaves contacts a hair, the trap closes if a different hair is contacted within twenty seconds of the first strike. The requirement of redundant triggering in this mechanism serves as a safeguard against a waste of energy in trapping objects with no nutritional value.” Wikipedia
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Hello friends once again here is an example of how to create a nice tattoo. Sometimes it’s better if you discuss your tattoo idea with an open mind, you might just get a tattoo that comes out better than you had ever expected.
Do you know the saying a picture is worth a 100o words well this is a prime example. My client wanted to have this bile verse tattooed on his ribs. Just the words, but I explained how long it would be and how he would just look like glossary. Don’t get me wrong lettering is nice but I think a picture is in need sometimes more to accommodate to the clients needs and desires. So here is the verse and the tattoo that I translated it in to. I hope you enjoy and thank you Luke for your trust in my ability.
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The Day Is Near
11 And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
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You know it’s not everyday you meet a chef that his specialty is cooking pig, pork or Barbeque, but it does happen. I started tattooing Chris a couple of years ago on a “Pike Family Tattoo Day”. This is a family that instead of buying each other sweaters like, “the giraffe wearing a Christmas hat, or yet another nic nac to put on the shelf, that you have to dust around just to notice it once again and realize its a matchbox car from the grocery store that is hot pink metal flake with neon green flames and it reminded your mom of your Honda Accord”. Well they would come in family and friends and book out the whole day and we would have a great time, telling stories usually the ones that embarrass you more than boost you, but hey that’s family. I meet Chris through his now wife, Kim. Kim use to come in with her sons Casey and Jason and their friends. But it always was the entire day and completely entertaining.
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Chris, I think at the time I met him he was a mechanic or something, but I always remember him telling me he was going to school to become a chef. Most mechanics have their wives cook for them, but he preferred to reverse the roles. He went on and studied and now is living a part of his dream of being a chef and is hoping one day to have a bed and breakfast somewhere I think in the mountains of NC with a full on Fine Dining Pork Pickin diner attached. I might have gotten part of this story mixed but anyways I always enjoy tattooing the Pike Family and Friends and hope to have more to come.
This is his tattoo of a pig skull with a chef’s knife to mark the time in his life of his accomplishments and perseverance of working towards something positive. Thank you Pike Family.
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This is a tattoo done on one of our most dedicated client’s, Jeannie. She had come to me asking if I did portrait tattoos. I responded with yes, and who is the person. She replied my furry kid. This is a tattoo for most part really effects me more than others. I myself have lost 2 of my own in 2 years. It’s one of the hardest things to deal with because they are only with us for such a short time. When she had told me this I returned to her with some of my own feelings on this tattoo that I had experienced in the past with my dog Lobo. When we lost Lobo, my wife Jessica was devastated more than I have ever seen before. When Jessica asked me if I cold do a portrait of Lobo and that she wanted to have his ashes mixed upon the ink, I thought this going to be a tough one, but such a beautiful moment. Because of him being my best friend and partner for 15 years and being so connected to him more than anything else in my life, I had to push through my own emotions to make this perfect for her.
For Jeannie I wanted this to be a special moment that only she could experience. So I had told her about Jessica’s request of the ashes and asked her if she would like to do the same. She responded with “I would of never have thought about that, but I would love to.” So we made the appointment and she brought in the ashes and I gave her a moment with herself and her friend (sorry I can’t remember his name). When she was done we [singlepic id=8 w=320 h=240 float=none]
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This is on my client Jessica. She came to me with the idea of wanting to do great women from the past, but not any one in particular. To capture the essence of the class, women had in the past by their beauty of their finger waved hair to their peacock feather broaches and subtle blush. As for the other one, she wanted it to have a “Rosie the Riveter” look but the not of the ones that are so iconic in today’s google search images. One that just had the presence of once again, the women of our past rising up when our country needed them most. To not be scared to crack a nail but still hold on to their softness. I feel like these were some of the best semi-portraits I have done in a long while. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did creating them. Thank you Jessica.
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