Yesterday I finally got back to Lucky Devil Tattoo for another sitting with Ron. Part of me was hoping to get this wrapped up and have the phoenix done. The other half didn’t want to sit through that much pain. During a discussion with Ron before we got started, we finalized a color palette for the phoenix and the dogwood blossoms around it.  We both thought it would be best to choose a cooler color palette to balance the warm color palette the encompasses the koi fish. This will make the phoenix stand apart from what the rest of the piece is doing.

Shortly after that discussion, Ron was ready to go. “First” he said, “We’ll start with some shading”. This will help define the Japanese Phoenix’s body and give it dimension. The shading only took about 45 minutes, as their isn’t much shading to do around the phoenix as much as their was to shade on the phoenix.

After a short back-stretching break, we started in on the color work. The pain was little more intense than I expected, seeing as how he just got done laying in the black shading…and now going over it again with color. The color palette for this phoenix is going to be a series of greens (that will then fade into greenish-yellows to highlight). The dogwood blossoms will be white (with a subtle hint of blue) with a different tone of green for the leaves that will help them pop.

After a couple of hours of laying in the same position and having him work on my leg, I pretty much had enough for the day. We sort of laughed at the situation and made light of calling it a day. “I could grin and bare it” I told him. “But why” he came back with. “There’s really no reason”. That’s too true.

I’ll get some photos up as soon as the swelling goes down and the heeling is done (probably in 10 days or so). If I showed photos now, you really wouldn’t be impressed because the green is dark right now. After the heeling is done, the green will pop so much better. My next session will be sometime in November. At that time, I pretty confident we’ll get this wrapped up.
(Session Time: ~2 hours | Total Time So Far: ~4 hours)

Comments