So I got the new tattoo...
...and it looks like this! (Tattoo artist's photo on her Instagram page; direct link to the photo here if you want a closer look.)
[Image: a Hawai'ian sea turtle glyph in black on the upper right outer arm, surrounded by multi-hued purple/blue watercolor that drips down the arm.]
Why watercolor? Because it's lovely.
Why the sea turtle? Because I'm an ocean girl, if one from the north Atlantic; because
scruloose and I got married in Hawai'i; and because during that trip, after I'd learned to snorkel just well enough that I could paddle around on my own a bit and not drown, a Hawai'ian sea turtle (honu) swam over and invited me to play.
(I may have written about this before, but what the hell.)
There was no mistaking that the turtle wanted to play. It came close--not in reach, but still pretty near--then swam a few feet further ahead of me...where it stopped and looked back over its shoulder at me, and waited until I cautiously swam a bit closer. (You're not supposed to deliberately get right up in a turtle's space.) Then it swam a bit further, and stopped and looked back again. We repeated this several times before I realized we'd swum into very shallow water and that if I followed any further I was likely to get tossed into the rocky shore by a wave, so I gave up on following the turtle, who was quite happy to be dashed against the rocks in its armor.
It's one of the most wonderful memories I have.
Actually getting the tattoo went smoothly!
scruloose and our friend R were both there hanging out while Amber did it, and the whole process took about three hours once she started actually putting needle to skin. The honu glyph took the longest and hurt the most, because she had to go over it again and again to get the black so dark, but it still hurt significantly less than I remember my ankle tattoos hurting.
Amber herself was great. She chatted with us about cats and various geeky things (and when she bent over to grab something and the waistband of her Captain America underwear showed briefly, she took it in stride when R complimented her on them). She really listened to what I wanted, and she did a fantastic job. ^_^
She used something like seven or eight different purple and blue inks, and even though I spent a fair bit of time watching her work at close range, I have no idea how she worked the watercolor magic. (Towards the end I was peering at the color and thought, Oh, she even worked a trace of red in there--no, wait, I'm bleeding.)
The tattoo is less than two and a half days old and I can already feel the honu part just barely beginning its threat of peeling--the skin is tight, especially if I raise my arm too much. Today I started using Tattoo Goo (which is what I used on my previous tattoos, with great results), and I keep managing to be nervous both about applying too much and too little. My other tattoos never itched much while they healed, and the peeling wasn't too bad (barely noticeable at all with the text on my upper left inner arm), so I hope that's true this time too. *fingers crossed*
It's my fourth tattoo. (The other three were all acquired on the same day.) It's also going to be the most visible by far, and I'm not sure if it's that highly-visible placement or the sheer size/brightness that makes me feel more tattooed than the other three do. My left arm tattoo often goes mostly unnoticed, and the pair on my Achilles tendons are almost never visible, since I tend to wear tights when I'm in skirts. (They were on display more during this past trip to Toronto than in the entire two years I've had them.)
Now to see how the healing goes. Wish me luck!
Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/717110.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:
[Image: a Hawai'ian sea turtle glyph in black on the upper right outer arm, surrounded by multi-hued purple/blue watercolor that drips down the arm.]
Why watercolor? Because it's lovely.
Why the sea turtle? Because I'm an ocean girl, if one from the north Atlantic; because
scruloose and I got married in Hawai'i; and because during that trip, after I'd learned to snorkel just well enough that I could paddle around on my own a bit and not drown, a Hawai'ian sea turtle (honu) swam over and invited me to play.
(I may have written about this before, but what the hell.)
There was no mistaking that the turtle wanted to play. It came close--not in reach, but still pretty near--then swam a few feet further ahead of me...where it stopped and looked back over its shoulder at me, and waited until I cautiously swam a bit closer. (You're not supposed to deliberately get right up in a turtle's space.) Then it swam a bit further, and stopped and looked back again. We repeated this several times before I realized we'd swum into very shallow water and that if I followed any further I was likely to get tossed into the rocky shore by a wave, so I gave up on following the turtle, who was quite happy to be dashed against the rocks in its armor.
It's one of the most wonderful memories I have.
Actually getting the tattoo went smoothly!
scruloose and our friend R were both there hanging out while Amber did it, and the whole process took about three hours once she started actually putting needle to skin. The honu glyph took the longest and hurt the most, because she had to go over it again and again to get the black so dark, but it still hurt significantly less than I remember my ankle tattoos hurting.
Amber herself was great. She chatted with us about cats and various geeky things (and when she bent over to grab something and the waistband of her Captain America underwear showed briefly, she took it in stride when R complimented her on them). She really listened to what I wanted, and she did a fantastic job. ^_^
She used something like seven or eight different purple and blue inks, and even though I spent a fair bit of time watching her work at close range, I have no idea how she worked the watercolor magic. (Towards the end I was peering at the color and thought, Oh, she even worked a trace of red in there--no, wait, I'm bleeding.)
The tattoo is less than two and a half days old and I can already feel the honu part just barely beginning its threat of peeling--the skin is tight, especially if I raise my arm too much. Today I started using Tattoo Goo (which is what I used on my previous tattoos, with great results), and I keep managing to be nervous both about applying too much and too little. My other tattoos never itched much while they healed, and the peeling wasn't too bad (barely noticeable at all with the text on my upper left inner arm), so I hope that's true this time too. *fingers crossed*
It's my fourth tattoo. (The other three were all acquired on the same day.) It's also going to be the most visible by far, and I'm not sure if it's that highly-visible placement or the sheer size/brightness that makes me feel more tattooed than the other three do. My left arm tattoo often goes mostly unnoticed, and the pair on my Achilles tendons are almost never visible, since I tend to wear tights when I'm in skirts. (They were on display more during this past trip to Toronto than in the entire two years I've had them.)
Now to see how the healing goes. Wish me luck!
Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/717110.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW: