"Denise"

This past weekend I took a big step forward, as an artist, by giving my homie Frank a memorial tattoo to remember his daughter's mom who passed away a few years ago. We had talked about it a few weeks back at our friend Diego's birthday party, and he decided to be the first person (besides myself) who I would tat up. I drew up a couple of sketches for him and e-mailed them to him to approve. The final design was agreed on & this past weekend I inked his right calf with her name. It was the first of a couple of sessions that we are going to have to do, in order to get all the color & highlights done, but the outline is finished & healing now. He explained that this was a very important tattoo to him, and that it meant a great deal to him because of what she meant to him & his little girl. He texted me later in the night, after I finished the outline, and told me that he was very happy & that it was the most important tattoo that he has (and he has quite a few)! Being a single dad myself, it came to mean a lot to me too, for obvious reasons. Also, though, it was my first time giving a tat, & a very sentimental tat to him, so it was very important to me that he was happy with it. I was honored that he not only trusted me enough to let me ink him up, but he also trust me with such an important & meaningful tattoo. Here are some of the pics that we took. There will be more once it is finished, but this is the sketch & outline for now...