March 31st, 2010 by Kat Von

Who doesn’t like food?  That’s what I say, anyway.  I was just reading an article about food tattoos and how they are apparently growing in popularity.  Now, I’m not so sure that they’re actually growing in popularity, considering that the article only really talks about a small handful of people who have food related tattoos, but then again, you never know.

In the past few years, food seems to have had almost as much of a fashionable resurgence as tattoos have.  Don’t believe me?  Turn on your TV and check out the Food Network.  Celebrity chefs like Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali and Bobby Flay have never been as widely recognizable as they currently are.  Along with the celebrity of these chefs comes a new appreciation for food and with that passion for food, it’s understandable why so many people turn to tattoo.  A tattoo of a cupcake or a sandwich?  Why not.  It doesn’t surprise me a bit that people would want food tattoos.  Does that mean that these types of tattoos are becoming any more popular than any other type of tattoo?  I doubt it, but placed in perspective with the everyday common nature that tattoos now have, it only makes sense that something as common and everyday as food would find its way into some ink and on to the skin.

Check out some of these food related tattoos and see what you think.

Tags: anthony bourdain, bobby flay, celebrity chefs, cupcake tattoo, food tattoos, mario batali, Pictures, sandwich tattoo, Tattoo Pictures, the food network

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March 31st, 2010 by Kat Von

Some bad news coming out of Los Angeles this week for former gang members looking to erase the marks of their past.  Sunrise Community Outreach in Westlake had its front window smashed this past Friday and when police arrived they found that SCO’s $50,000 Palomar Q-YAG 5 laser system was gone.

Sunrise Community Outreach is a non-profit organization which provides affordable tattoo removal for former gang members.  About 200 people are aided by the organization each year, but now that the laser removal system has been stolen, it looks like SCO might be finished.  Adding insult to injury, the laser was not insured, as the SCO’s executive director, Rosemarie Ashamalla says that SCO’s status as a non-profit organization made insuring the laser more difficult.

Not sure who would do something like this, but like Ashamalla says, ”This is not something you take to a local pawnbroker.”  Either someone has a lot of tattoos that they want to get rid of, or they know someone who’ll pay for such equipment.  Either way, it seems like a pretty brutal blow to an organization that was helping people get their lives on track.

Tags: Dislike, Los Angeles, News, non profit organization, palomar q-yaf 5 laser removal system, Products, rosemarie ashamalla, Sunrise Community Outreach, Tattoo Removal, tattoo removal, westlake

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March 31st, 2010 by Kat Von

I have to admit, I’m starting to wonder if there’s something in the water in Portland.  I mean, there’s got to be some sort of reason why so many awesome tattoo artists either set up shop in Portland or are simply home grown examples of seriously rad tattoo skills.  London Bellman, James Kern, Jeff Johnson – to name a few – and now I’ve discovered another artist to add to that list: Alice Kendall.

Though she was born in California, Alice first made her way to Portland in 1989 to study graphic design, mixed media and sculpture at Pacific Northwest College of Art.  However, it wouldn’t be until 2000 that she stayed in Portland for good, landing an apprenticeship followed by a permanent spot at Infinity Tattoo.

According to Alice, she sees art in everything all around her.  That much is certainly obvious when you look at her tattoo work.  I think the first thing that struck me about Alice’s work is her use of colour and the control she exercises with that colour.  Nothing is wasted, nothing is overused, everything has its place and is doled out with just the right sense of purpose and necessity.  Nature seems to be a recurring theme in the tattoos found in her portfolio, which makes sense when you consider that nowhere is there more colour and intensity than in the wings of butterflies or birds, or in the trees and flowers found so abundant within the Pacific Northwest.

Beyond her tattoo work, Alice has worked quite steadily within the community.  She worked full time for 3 years in San Francisco with homeless youth, teaching them colour separation.  This desire to lend her expertise to more disadvantaged sections of society has stayed with her even now in Portland as she helps her husband with his non-profit programme, providing music and arts education for homeless youth.  Did I mention that she’s also a mom and that she still takes art classes at Pacific Northwest College of Art?  Yep, she does.

A talented, compassionate artist with a real social conscience.  No wonder Alice Kendall sees art all around her: she’s continually creating it for both herself and others.  Nice work, Alice.

Tags: Alice Kendall, Infinity Tattoo Portland, Inspired, James Kern, Jeff Johnson, london bellman, meet alice kendall!, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Pictures, Portland Oregon, San Francisco, Tattoo Artists, tattoo blog, Tattoo Pictures, Workforce

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March 31st, 2010 by Kat Von

Video games are great fun.  I don’t have any of the really cool systems like Xbox 360 or the PS3, but there are tons of people out there who do.  Believe it or not, but the average age of gamers has actually gone up over the years and in England for example, the average age of a gamer is 33.  Video games it seems, are growing up.  That’s fortunate because now that the average age of gamers is increasing, it’s easier for video game companies to run promotional campaigns that specifically target people who are over the age of 18.

Take for example the current campaign being waged by the fine people at Sega.  Promoting the recent release of their game Yakuza 3 (which I haven’t played, but which looks like a lot of fun), Sega has offered one lucky winner the opportunity to have their entire back tattooed with the same back piece that Yakuza 3’s hero, Kazuma Kiryu has.  We’re talking a $9,000 dragon back piece here.  The tattoo was designed by Japanese tattoo artist Horitomo.  Anyone can enter this competition and if you’re interested, you need to fill out this application and send it in before Saturday, March 27th at 11:59pm.  Not sure what time zone that’s in, but if you’re interested, best to just play it safe and take the three seconds it requires to fill out the application form right now.

So there you go, a seriously crazy tattoo could be yours and all it’ll cost you is never being able to take your shirt off in Japan again.  Other than that, you’ll be as close to the Yakuza as you can ever be.

Tags: free tattoo contest, horitomo, Japanese, japanese tattoo, kazuma kiryu, News, playstation, ps3, sega, Stories, Tattoo Artists, video games, xbox 360, yakuza 3, yakuza tattoo

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March 31st, 2010 by Kat Von

I think that we all know by now how fascination can lead to obsession which can then lead to having a lot of really bad tattoos.  To be honest, I try my best never to judge people for the types of tattoos that they want to have.  Everyone has their own tastes and opinions and it is of course, entirely possible that something that might not be cool for me is very cool for someone else.  Fair enough.  I do tend to judge however, when someone gets a series of really bad tattoos – and by bad I mean poorly done tattoos – as a result of their obsession with a famous or in this case, a notoriously famous person.

John Riddux, 28 of Ayr, Scotland recently had the chance to meet his hero, Mike Tyson.  Riddux has numerous Mike Tyson tattoos on his body and he drove to Blackpool after hearing that Tyson would be appearing at a hotel to talk about his boxing career.  After meeting Tyson and having the former heavyweight boxing champ and current convicted rapist check out his tattoos, Riddux then had Tyson sign his back.  Riddux later had the signature tattooed over, permanently etching it into his back mural of Tyson fandom.

Hey, it’s cool that John Riddux had his dream come true by meeting Tyson and getting him to autograph his back.  Personally, if I was Tyson I would be a little weirded out by the whole thing.  Then again, it’s probably pretty hard to weird out a dude who once bit off another dude’s ear…

Tags: ayr scotland, bad tattoos, blackpool, Celebrity, Dislike, john riddux, mike tyson fan tattoos, Stories, Tattoo Pictures

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March 31st, 2010 by Kat Von

An update from the horror movie website Oh My Gore! provides information about a new tattoo documentary called Tattoos: A Scarred History.  Not sure why a horror movie website is reporting this, but none the less, this thing looks pretty cool.

The film follows a young woman named Souslla Pilay as she seeks to discover why exactly it is that the tattoo phenomenon has taken such a hold over western society.  Along the way, the film meets up with various tattooed celebrities such as the now deceased David Carradine, John Landis, Jason Mewes and even Gordon Ramsay.  The DVD will be released on April 12th, 2010 and will contain quite a few nifty little extras, including:

- Official Trailer
-Leather Zoo’s ‘Stranger’ Music Video
- Tattoo History 101 Animation
- Raw and Uncut Interviews with the cast
- Angelwish Video featuring Kyra Sedgewick
- Deleted interviews: Police discrimination. Is it Art?, Removal & tapping
- Unseen Celebrity Survey

Check out the teaser trailer below, but I’ll just give you a quick heads up that it’s got a couple really quick NSFW moments (unless your place of work happens to be a tattoo studio, that is).

Tags: Celebrity, david carradine, dvd release, gordon ramsay, jason mewes, john landis, News, oh my gore!, Products, souslla pilay, Stories, Tattoo Artists, Tattoo Pictures, tattoos a scarred history, teaser trailer, Video, Workforce

March 31st, 2010 by Kat Von

Ooh, the plot thickens.  When I first heard that Sandra Bullock’s husband of five years, Jesse James, had been cheating on her with a tattoo model, I thought Meh…that’s a little National Enquirer for the tattoo blog.  Bullock’s already been getting tons of publicity for that crappy Blind Side movie and I didn’t really feel the need to post something that sort of had something to do with tattooing, but not really at all.  That news was just tabloid stuff.

Fast forward a few days and man, I’m sorry but I just can’t resist putting this up on the blog.  It seems that this tattoo model, one Michelle McGee is more than just a home wrecker: surprise!  She’s also a Nazi!

Recent photos have surfaced of McGee in a Nazi photo shoot where she sports all the typical Nazi crap: hat, swastika arm band, etc.  She’s also got a the letter W tattooed on the back of one leg and P tattooed on the back of the other, which allegedly stands for “White Power”.

Wow, Jesse James dude, you really know how to royally mess things up.  Not sure what Bullock has to say about this little extra bit of info, but I’m guessing it’s not really going to make the situation any better.  Anyway, yeah, I know, this was a little tabloid-y, but hey, sometimes when it’s something this ridiculous, you just have to be.  Click here for Michelle McGee’s photo shoot photos.

Tags: Celebrity, Dislike, jesse james, michelle mcgee, national enquirer, nazi photo shoot, News, Pictures, Pinup Girls, sandra bullock, the blind side

March 31st, 2010 by Kat Von

What draws women to butterflies?  Why is that butterfly tattoos are primarily seen on women and not on men?  Where are all the tattoos of the hundreds, and possibly thousands, of caterpillars before they turn into those glorious butterflies?

For years women have used the butterfly as their tattoo of choice on every part of their body from the tips of their toes to, well maybe not to their nose but still, the butterfly can be seen on just about any part of a woman’s body.  Ask one of them what their butterfly symbolizes and who knows what they will say.  Perhaps it has something to do with the way a silly looking caterpillar can wrap itself in a cocoon for a few days or weeks and then climb out as a beautiful flying butterfly.  It could have to do with the many stories of butterflies, ranging from the mysterious deep meaning tales of butterflies changing the world or the thoughts of a bitter old man to the children’s stories of butterflies befriending birds and frogs and other woods animals.
Whatever the case or reason behind them, it would be hard to find an ‘evil’ butterfly so we could assume that anyone with a butterfly tattoo has gotten it for a happy reason rather than a rebellious or devilish purpose.

When one thinks of butterflies, images of a sunny day in a field of flowing flowers come to mind.  Small and large butterflies alike dancing and floating from flower to flower, taking in the pollen and the tiny particles it uses for food.  Or something like that.  Sometimes a butterfly tattoo might just be an accent piece, used to fill in a gap between some other random artwork tattooed on the person’s body.  We already heard about some celebrity’s tattoos, one that mentions gilded butterflies, which has specific meaning to that celebrity.  Describing a butterfly, gilded in what is normally gold, again brings an image of something supposedly beautiful and peaceful.

Butterflies come in all shapes and sizes.  Butterfly tattoos also can come in all shapes and sizes, allowing a person to get a similar butterfly tattoo to their friend yet have it be unique to them with just a few small changes.  This allows for some personal meaning to go into the tattoo without having to be too creative at the same time.

Not only are pictures of butterflies popular but wording and text that speak of butterflies is also popular.  There are also many songs that have lyrics based around butterflies and those can be placed somewhere on a body, made to look like ancient poetry when in fact they’re songs long forgotten from the 1980’s.

March 31st, 2010 by Kat Von

A lot can be said with a limited amount of colors in a tattoo.  Many people choose to have what they call blackwork tattoos where the entire tattoo uses only one color.  The color black that is used for these blackwork tattoos is sometimes also used mainly for the outline of a tattoo, since the outlines need to be crisp and dark.

Although there are a lot of tattoos out there filled with vibrant colors and rich detail, it is not always necessary to use so many colors in order to get the point of your tattoo across to it’s viewers.  With the proper shading, spacing, and use of lines and shapes, an intricately detailed tattoo, made with only black ink, can sometimes look even more spectacular than if it was made with three or four or even five colors.

Traditional tattoos from years and years ago were normally made with just one color, the only color available to them.  Prison tattoos are made with just one color, normally black, and it seems some people are going back to tattoo’s roots and using only black in their designs and creations.  There have even been tattoos created that cover a person’s entire arm in solid black, as if they were wearing a long sleeve, tight fitting black tshirt.  Others have placed black blocks in places upon their body, giving the impression of a censor bar that might be seen in a picture or on TV.

Since the invention of colored tattoo ink, people have been asking for their tattoos to be rich and full of life.  Just about any color in the spectrum can be made, including white to some degree, so why limit yourself to just a solid black when you can have anything you can think of in your piece?  Well, because the solid black tattoo can also hold different meaning to you, along with it’s simplicity and the beauty behind it’s simplicity.

An old tattoo, it’s colors faded and blurry, can be brought back to life by retracing it’s lines with new colors, making it look as if it was freshly done and it had not sat on that persons back for years and years.  It can also be brought to life, depending on it’s current shape and outline, by making the entire thing one solid color, shading the entire thing in black, like a large dark shadow or a black birthmark, an extension of the person who wears it, dark and crisp and noticeable from yards away down a crowded boardwalk.

Solid black tattoos can also come in handy for those that are colorblind since black can be seen by everyone with sight capable eyes.  Black, be definition being the absence of color, can give off a unique shine and quality that becomes beautiful without having any other accenting colors to go along with it.

March 31st, 2010 by Kat Von

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are just one of many bands on the market today that have multiple tattoos between the members.  Supposedly bass player Flea has the most tattoos within the band but that remains up for debate.

Some have to wonder why band members always seem to be so fascinated with getting tattoos.  Find me a band that doesn’t have a single member with a tattoo and you’ll have found an all girl band or maybe a tweener band, with pretty boys singing in falsetto voices and going to bed before 9pm.

Did the band get together to play music or did they get together to get tattoos?  It makes a person wonder, doesn’t it?  Is getting tattoos a right of passage for band members, or is playing in a band a right of passage for people who like to get tattoos?
Lots of bands seem to have tattoed members from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Green Day and even Avril Lavigne has tattoos.  They range from the ordinary star tattoo, tribal arm bands, random pictures of smoking babies, scorpians, and lettering of different styles, just to name a few.  Sometimes people like to watch the band members during videos or concerts to see if they can pick out a new tattoo that someone has gotten.  They make a game out of it, seeing who can pick out the newest tattoo first.  Who knows what the winner gets.  Probably just kudos from their friends, which is more than it’s worth anyhow!

It might make you think that if you were to get enough tattoos, maybe you too could become a rock star.  Obviously it wouldn’t be an overnight thing since your tattoos can’t be placed overnight.  Or at least not enough tattoos to become rockstar-worthy, which is a good thing because while you’re taking the time to get enough tattoos to be a rocker, you can also spend some time with singing lessons or learning to play an instrument while your tats heal.  That way, when all your tats are ready to show the public and the cover of Rolling Stone, you might have some kind of musical talent to back you up incase nobody likes your skin art.

Or, go out and get yourself a load of tattoos just because you like tattoos.  Who says you have to be a rockstar to have tattoos?  Then, once you’re all tattooed up and looking like a rockstar, go out and have a good time.  And if you have some musical talent to go along with your look, go for it!  Or just have a good time playing by yourself and jamming with friends and enjoying your tats.