Tattoos I Love: Melanie's Hybrid Flower

This is another special edition of best-tatto-design, a variation on the Tattoos I Know series. First seen on Valentine's Day, this is an episode of Tattoos I Love.

This category is reserved for the ink on my wife, Melanie, who turns 40 today.

Several years ago, I bought her a gift certificate for Body Art Studios in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The owner and artist, Peter Cavorsi, is a talented tattooer, and he proved it in this case.

Melanie's favorite flower is the iris. She wanted something pretty along those lines, and gave Peter a couple of samples of artwork as a reference.

What he came up with was a lovely interpretation of the iris, but with other floral elements thrown in. So, although based on her favorite flower, it is a hybrid that is uniquely hers:


I surreptitiously snapped this photo of the tattoo on her right ankle last year at a little league game in which our younger daughter was playing.

Work from Peter at Body Art Studios has appeared previously on best-tatto-design here.

Happy Birthday, Melanie!

Trina's Tattoo for Her Momma

The second subject of our March 10 tattoo bonanza is Trina, who sports seven tattoos, several of which are on her legs.

After her sixth piece, her mother chided her, saying teasingly, "You have all of those tattoos, and none of them are for me?"

The next tattoo solved that problem:


Reading "I'll always love my Momma," this piece was inked on the back of one of Trina's calves at Uptown Tattoos & Body Piercing in Harlem.

And what does the woman to whom this tattoo is dedicated think of it?

"Mom loves it," Trina grinned. As well she should.

Thanks to Trina for sharing her tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

Juan's Sleeve, Traditional Elements, Inked in the Bronx

A burst of pleasantly warm weather this week signified the end of a quiet winter.

Posts have been scarce indeed, but I see busier times ahead.

Wednesday afforded me my first "Tat* Trick" of 2010. That term, for those unfamiliar, is reserved for a day when I meet and photograph at least three tattoo hosts. Even rarer is the "Lunch Tat Trick," which involves me getting photos from three people (or more) in the course of an hour, on my lunch break.

So I am grateful for the following contributor, and the two three other nice people from the 10th of March.

I spotted Juan in Penn Station and he offered up this half-sleeve-in-progress, which includes a skull element and a panther :


Inked by Freddie Arroyo at Cool Hand Tattoo in the Bronx, this tattoo features his ideas and the artist's interpretation of the suggested design elements. The mask at the bottom of the design is one element I find exceptionally interesting, as it deviates slightly from what a traditional demon mask looks like, and takes on a slightly more original appearance which more likely reflects the style of the artist:


The work as photographed represents two sittings. Not seen in the shot above, but quite impressive, is the work and color of this flower, which is on the inside of the biceps, extending into the ditch:


Thanks to Juan for sharing this tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

* Ed. Note:Tattoo purists often raise an eyebrow at the term "tat" to denote a tattoo. I generally employee it when I am attempting a clever play on words. Sometimes, I fail.

Amy's Circle of Sanskrit Honors The Loss of Something She Needed to Lose

It was one of those New York City best-tatto-design moments, when you really hit it off with someone and a simple question about a tattoo turns into a lengthy conversation.

I was coming home much later than usual and, at West 4th Street, where I'll occasionally switch from the A train to the D train, I spotted a woman in front of a subway map on the platform. She had tattoos on her ankles and was carrying a large hoop.

Amy, a nursing student and trapeze artist, shared the long segments on either side of her right food, inked in Sanskrit, quoting the Baghavad Gita:


She paraphrased the meaning as "Weapons do not pierce this. Fire does not burn this. Such is the eternal nature of the soul."

Or, in one translation, referring to the Atma, or higher self:

Weapons do not cut this Atma, fire does not burn it, water does not make it wet, and the wind does not make it dry. (2.23)
This Atma cannot be cut, burned, wetted, or dried up. It is eternal, all pervading, unchanging, immovable, and primeval. (2.24)

Why this quote? Aside from her appreciation of Hindu art and design, she got in "in honor of forgetting a person's number that I really needed to forget".

In other words, as I interpret it, she couldn't remember the number of someone who she was better off without. Her mind released the link to the person the heart craved and, in hindsight, the mind was operating in the best interest of the soul.

She had this work done by an artist at Purple Panther Tattoos on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood California.

Although the photos above were taken on the train platform at West 4th, we spent a good amount of time chatting on the D train after it pulled into the station. We talked about tattoos mostly, and I recommended some artists to check out in New York.

Amy said she had been recently thinking about a new tattoo and it was funny that I just happened to approach her about her own work.

We parted ways when the D rolled into 36th Street in Brooklyn, where I switched to the R train, and Amy headed to work teaching an Aerial Hoop class (which explains her possession of the large ringed object I alluded to at the beginning of the post).

A hearty thank you to Amy for sharing her inspirational tattoo with us here at best-tatto-design!

Hoot! Hoot! Thanks for Your Support!!

Last night at 11:37 P.M., someone in Fairfield, California googled "owl tattoos".

Seventh on the list of results was the link to this tattoo:

(the post here)

This visitor registered best-tatto-design's half a millionth hit, a number that seemed impossible when we first started out as a spin-off from BillyBlog 2 1/2 years ago (almost to the day). And although we're no Huffington Post (or I Can Has Cheeseburger, for that matter), which tosses off 500k in a day, or a week, or a month, or whatever, this little tattoo blog is very happy to celebrate this milestone.

Thanks to everyone who visits regularly, stops by occasionally, or just pops in from time to time. And, of course, a hearty thank you to all those tattooed folks who have volunteered their body art over the last 30 months!

Tattoorism: Corline's Beautiful Tree

As we rapidly approach the milestone of a half a million hits, it only seems fitting that today's post features a tattoo from one of our fans. We recently received this photograph of a lovely tattoo from Corline:


This beautiful tree on her lower back was tattooed by an artist known as "Hellboy Dennis" in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It's her first tattoo and took about four hours.

Corline says she and Dennis collaborated on the design. They worked at a friend's home studio, he drew it on her back, and then took about four hours to tattoo it, making his own interpretation of their design. She adds, "Trees are really important to me. I went to travel after a long relationship and found my roots and my freedom...".

Thanks to Corline for sharing her lovely tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

New tattoo blog with tribal flash for sale

Hi!

On this blog you can find my sketches and custom tattoos, but for my new designs I created a special flash blog.
You can find and buy my latest tattoo flash designs here.
It's more of a portfolio with different tattoo images and less text, so it's easier to browse quickly.

Because all designs have labels, you can simply select your favourite tattoo category and order it right away.

Each week I'll upload and post one or two new high resolution designs, so if you wish to keep informed, please visit and subscribe to the new weblog.


Kind regards, Mark Storm
info@best-tatto-design.com
www.best-tatto-design.com