four-eyes rella: Tattoo party - for the ladies only.

Welp, Mikel Johnson is the best. Last summer he did a guest spot at my work, and I was there, hovering over his shoulder practically the entire time watching him tattoo. He does really interesting stuff, lots of black radical tribal, Maori, mandalas, dot work, etc. He's not afraid to tattoo a throat or a thumb. He doesn't even give a care.

Anyway, maybe because I was constantly and forcibly inserting myself into his comfort zone for days on end, he said to me one day that he would give me a tattoo if I wanted next time he was in town.

Uh YES PLEASE!

So a few weeks ago I heard a rumor that he was coming for a visit, just to tattoo me and Sarah! I can't even explain to you guys how fortunate I feel. It's like being in a really cool family, working at the tattoo shop. And times like this are almost unbelievable.

Mikel drew me a mandala while he was still in Vancouver, and posted it on his tumblr (click here to see the drawing). Then when he got here we just kind of picked a spot and went for it. I am getting to the point where there's not many 'easy' places to just throw a tattoo, so we figured it would look cool behind some stuff I already had. And yes it does!

Do you like how both my animal friends have found a way into every singe self portrait I ever take? What a couple of jerks.

This tattoo has no lines at all, it's all dots. It was the easiest tattoo I've ever gotten. It barely even hurt. I told Mikel I just felt like I was lying there and hanging out with him, not even getting a tattoo. He has a really mellow happy sort of aura about him anyway, and that, plus the lack of pain and the fucking awesome tattoo made for a really great experience. And because I live so far out of town I never really get to do the hang-out-after-hours thing with everybody. That was nice too.

When I was finished Sarah got her thumb tattooed. I'm gonna be honest, I can't remember what the name of the symbol is, or what Mikel said it signifies. Something about the path of enlightenment in Thailand I think?? Here he is drawing it on:

And tattooing it:

You can see the finished tattoo here.

And then our friend April got some dots on the sides of her hands. Doesn't it look neat? My favorite part was when she yelled "MOTHERFUCKER" hahaha I guess one of those dots hurt pretty bad.