A.Sanchez

tat guns. hands down that one bothers me every single time and I will always correct it.

I remember arriving back in LA from SF 5 years ago and seeing my first tattoo from Bryan. I was like "who did this?" "WTF who is this guy". "where did he come from...what, what, what?" Awesome dude, one of LA's best, down to earth, good guy tattooers.

Yeah one of the most inspiring influences in my tattoo life is Henry Lewis. He reintroduced the idea to me ( I had learned this in art school but let it fall by the wayside) after starting at Skull and Sword. Those guys are on some tattoo warrior shit. Henry has been open to starting over and taking instruction to better his tattooing and the tiny drawing thing is big over there. Seeing a wall sized cork board full of tiny drawings of back pieces and sleeves was pretty mindblowing.

I have thought long and hard about this and have changed my approach from time to time. I tend to be a workaholic, and I have made a general rule to keep work at work and spend my days off doing things other then tattoo related drawing. I try and clear the visual tattoo clutter out of my head by spending time with family, going to a museum, seeing a movie or show, or just going for a walk/hike or getting out on my bike. I feel like this approach has recharged my intentions and inspiration more then when i use to spend every waking moment searching for reference and thinking about my clients for the upcoming week. I try and have one day out of a work week (Wednesday for me, which is my Monday) where i sit down and knock out as many drawings for clients as I can. If that means coming in to the shop at 9am I'll do that. No music, no clients, no one else there yet. I just get out my references and start knocking out appointment drawings in order of priority. I find my brain and hand really respond to that kind of intention to just sit down and draw rather then trying to cram drawing time in between appointments and walk ins. And for those kind of appointments I try and have it all work out and ok'd so when appointment time comes i can just sit down and tattoo. I also got a really good tip from one of my other tattoo buddies to draw tiny. Like with a mechanical pencil to start with. Really little...like 1" x 2" no matter how big the tattoo is. Just to rough out a thumbnail of how i want everything to fit compositionally. and then once i like it in mini form I'll blow up that thumbnail and start working that way. It saves me so much time and energy. I'm not fully rendering things out that the client wants me to completely change. I show them the little guy and explain it to them and if they are into the idea i render it out. Also I started having a day once a week were me and 4 other tattooers meet up and draw and paint for ourselves. No talking about tattoos, or work and the images can be whatever we want. We all just bring a bunch of supplies and see what happens. It's been great for inspiration and productivity. Mario I think redrawing is okay if you don't drive it into the ground. I think artists need to tap into their intuition and go with what feels natural. I can always see it in my head and just try and get it down on paper. But i also always ask the imput of my co-workers "what looks weird? what doesn't work? how would you approach this?" okay i feel like i'm rambling now........

it bothers me that "tattoo's" is a category on her website. people love to misuse the apostrophe.

I should really watch what i say. i don't want to invite a greater hurtin' coming my way. My first sitting with scott is on the 18th at noon, would love to meet ya.

Ps. y'all are pussies. It didn't hurt that bad. There were a couple of unpleasant spots but overall it just felt like a tattoo. I was able to relax into it, meditate and it was over.

Okay, so I don't know if this is the appropriate thread for this post. But since we were talking about painful spots and Bryan and Scott decided to start a pain competition on my torso I figured I'd post the photo here. Bryan was extremely pleasant to work with. Pretty damn fast at about 2 hours, no breaks, start to finish. One more session for color and it's a wrap. Next comes the first sitting with Scott on the other side in a couple weeks....

we've been rocking this "Out on the Floor" northern soul comp a lot lately, and Barry White. It's super relaxing and when we get the customers who say, wow I've never heard this in a tattoo shop before I take that as compliment

I've also heard two stories recently from tattooers who were busted in customs when the customs agents simply did an internet search for the tattooers name and found announcements of their guest spots abroad.

I'm on the flyer.........i better start painting.

oh man. I'm going in today.....1 o'clock appointment

I think a street shop owner started this madness. I'm fittin to draw up some Ophiuchus designs right now.

It's a joke i make a lot at the shop, it's dumb but it makes people laugh and not think about the hurt i'm about to put on them. I also tell them that the tattoo they are about to get is always the most painful one. Time dulls the experience so all that matters is the one happening right now. Personally my back didn't seem that bad. The bottom of the ribs, round the kidneys was pretty unfriendly. The back of the knees sucks pretty well. I just left a deposit to get my left rib panel done by Brian Burk, so i'm a little nervous about that. I gave Scott dibs on the other side, so i'll let you guys know who puts the hurt on worse once they are done....

Detroit.....most painful spot to get tattooed in.

I have a promotional poster for the books that i have never seen another one of. It was pulled off a pub wall for me by a pal who was traveling around england. its framed above my station. i'll get a pic of it for you Lochian, you'll dig it.