Portrait Of Mother and Grandfather by N^T^N

 Portrait tattoos are a very powerful way to preserve the memory of a loved one forever. Michael Bragan of Salem Massachusetts came into Witch City Ink with a picture of his Mother kissing his Grandfather on her wedding day. He was looking to get a portrait tattoo done, and he chose Natan to do the portrait because he liked some of the other portraits in his portfolio.  His Grandfather had passed away on December 27th of 2007, and Michael felt this would be the best way to honor his grandfather.

In Michael’s words: “I chose this picture because it is my mother’s favorite of the two together and from what I can remember this was the happiest I ever saw him. The smile on his face was priceless!”

Below are the images of the picture Michael brought in, the stencil Natan made of the picture, and the final tattoo.

The original Image:

Grandfather and Mother Picture

Grandfather and Mother Picture

The Stencil:

Portrait Stencil

Portrait Stencil

The Tattoo:

Finished Portrait with original picture

Finished Portrait with original picture

A Close up shot of the Final Tattoo:

Grandfather and Mother  Portrait Close up

Grandfather and Mother Portrait Close up

Natan writes, “Portrait tattoos are always a joy to do because people are so thrilled when you get it perfect. A tattoo of a loved one is a great way to keep them forever in your thoughts. When people bring in their favorite picture of a someone its up to you to really capture not only their likeness but also their spirit. There’s always a great story behind it and its some of the most challenging yet rewarding work you can do.”

New Art by Molly McKinnon

Snow Patrol, markers on bristol

Snow Patrol, markers on bristol

I drew this one day at work during a snow storm. One of my favorite themes to get ideas from is post apocalyptic setting. I’m just as happy drawing or tattooing less grim subjects, animals, flowers, “girly stuff”, what not. I just find “The end of days” feeds more into my love and interest in the action movies, 2D animation, and comics I loved growing up that really made me want to pursue my art further. I used markers on heavy stock paper for this piece. Both work well with the layering and experimenting with color I enjoy doing.

Tribal Wolf Tattoo by Jay Ski

 

wolf tribal

wolf tribal

 

      The client on this tattoo wanted a wolf tattoo with tribal . I told him we should do the wolf photo realistic and have the tribal fading behind the wolf. Doing a little research went a long way in creating this piece. We looked through images of wolves and found a pretty mean looking one for reference and then drew on the tribal with a marker. Sometimes drawing directly on the skin allows for a better flow, making the tattoo contour to the body alot more than it would if I used a stencil.

New art by Steve Gillespie

This is a water color painting by Steve Gillespie. If you like this type of painting or you have an idea for a painting, please contact Witch City Ink. Steve can customize your idea into a painting. All artwork he  posts is for sale. If you would like to purchase a painting, call  the shop at (978)744-9393 or email  tattoos@witchcityink.com.

Chrysanthemum watercolor painting by Steve Gillespie

Chrysanthemum watercolor painting by Steve Gillespie

Dragon Coverup Tattoo by N^T^N

Some tattoos get done in one session, and some take many. Brad wanted a Japanese dragon and he wanted it bright and strong. Thats exactly the type of tattoo work I like to do and I was very excited about the project. In the initial drawing consultation he described what he would like, we looked at some references, and I took some measurements to help me plan the tattoo. Brad and I began this tattoo knowing it would take a few sittings because there were 2 very solid tattoos that had to be covered as part of the design.

Heres a picture of the 2 tattoos we covered:

Brads Before Picture

Brads Before Picture

When Brad arrived for his first tattoo session we sat right down and got to work. I was careful to locate elements of the design in places where I knew the color would mask the old tattoos. We tattooed for 3 hours and I managed to lay down the entire outline and some of the black. We made great progress but nevertheless, after the first session it was clear there was a long way to go. After our session, Brad took a picture of the outline. The photo is a little bit low resolution but you can at least get a sense of the progress. After 3 hours the tattoo looked like this:

First Session

First Session

The first session we got the whole outline in and some of the preliminary black, in the next session, 6 hours into the tattoo, we began to prepare the underpainting of the scales and background. Fortunately, Brad sat perfectly every session and was patient about getting the results he wanted. As a result I was able to concentrate on every detail along the way. Soon the tattoo started taking shape:

2nd Session

2nd Session

In the 3rd session the entire tattoo started really looking clearer and brighter, and we felt like huge progress had been made. At this point it started getting pretty hard to tell it was a coverup tattoo at all. 9 hours into the tattoo and the 1/2 sleeve looked like this:

3rd Session

3rd Session

At last we got to the final session, the last 3 hours. This is where a large amount of final detail work, color touch ups, and tightening of the outline took place. Using the last session to really perfect the tattoo gave me a chance to go over every area and make those colors pop out. Both Brad and I were very pleased with the final results as seen below:

Brads Dragon Final 1

Brads Dragon Final 1

Front View, Final Session

Front View, Final Session

Brads Dragon, Back View, Final Session

Brads Dragon, Back View, Final Session

Some tattoos definitely require patience, but in the end it pays off.

Tattoo Study Paintings

Tattoos are permanent, and you cant erase once you start, so its not uncommon for custom tattoo artists to make a complete painting of the intended design prior to actually tattooing them. Each one is a unique expression of the clients wishes and the artists vision for the design. While not every tattoo demands such elaborate preparation, its good to see examples of artwork other than tattoos from the person you choose to adorn you for the rest of your life!

Below are a few examples of artwork created by tattoo artist N^T^N Alexander. These paintings were created for clients specifically for the purpose of tattooing them:

Color Study for V-Twin Tattoo by N^T^N

Color Study for V-Twin Tattoo. Watercolor on Bristol Board, N^T^N 2007

A customer who wanted to immortalize his love of motorcycles commissioned this tattoo design from me. When circumstances prevented him from getting the tattoo, I decided to complete the sketch and make a watercolor painting from it instead. The flying eyeball comes from a skateboard deck design by Jim Phillips and the glowing spiderweb background complements the strong hotrod/rockabilly feel he wanted the overall piece to have.

"The Road to Hell is Easy"

The Road to Hell is Easy, Watercolor on Paper, 2006

This design was commissioned by a client who was in recovery after years of battling addiction. He liked the look of old fashioned pistols and wanted to have a skull and some poppy flowers in the design as well. After some discussion, we decided to include a latin phrase in the design, “Facilis Decensus Averno” which means, “The road to Hell is Easy” The tattoo was designed to serve as a reminder to him that he could always fall back into the hell of opiate addiction if he didnt stay strong and focused.

Our new tattoo shop makes the news

Down town Salem Massachusetts is known more for fortune tellers and witches than body art. But when Witch City Ink opened their doors in 2008 we were flooded with media. With our new shop location being right on the main thoroughfare, the Essex Street pedestrian walkway, people were watching us build out a beautiful space but still didn’t know what we were putting in there.

One of the first news pieces to be published about us described the vibe of our shop and the vision of Natan our shop owner and artist.

Owner of the new Witch City Ink shares inspiration for his art

To distract bare-skinned clients from the buzz of his tattoo needle, artist Natan Alexander has done all he can to make Witch City Ink as peaceful as a Tibetan temple. Incense curls skyward and Enya plays softly, while overhead on the walls is a collection of cultural symbols: a Babylonian seal, a Tibetan mask designed to scare away evil spirits.

“It’s about creating a feeling,” says the 38-year-old owner of the new shop on Essex Street. “I’m a big believer that tattooing is a magical process. I wanted to create a sacred space.”

Alexander, 38, is part philosopher, part rock star. He looks like Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but talks like a medical school student, throwing around words like maxilla and mandible when talking about a skull tattoo he’s particularly proud of, that takes up an entire man’s back.

“A little bit of anatomy understanding is a key thing to get a tattoo to flow correctly,” Alexander says. Later, when explaining his passion for the art of tattooing, he says, “The universe is perfectly expressed in the human form.”

For Alexander, tattooing is about an appreciation for art and anatomy, the perfect fusion of his two passions. The Western Mass. native was on the track to becoming a doctor, studying physics and biology when a he got sidetracked on a trip to Holland. There, he fell in with some local tattoo artists who took him under their wings.

At 27, Alexander returned to Boston intent on opening a tattoo parlor. But at that time tattoos were illegal in Massachusetts. So Alexander set about rallying to get them legalized, writing letters to Congress and campaigning around the city.

“I felt it was wrong for tattoos to be banned, coming from Europe where it was a cultural movement,” he says. “I’m a big believer in freedom of the individual.”

In 2001 tattoos were legalized, and Alexander soon after helped organize the Boston Tattoo Convention, an annual gathering of tattoo artists from all over the country. He went on to open two tattoo parlors, one in Boston and one in Saugus. Last month he opened the doors of his latest shop, on the Essex Street Pedestrian Mall.

Witch City Ink he hopes will be a multicultural center, which will showcase tattoo artists from around the world. With three full-time artists employed at the shop, Alexander is working with the Salem Board of Health to get permission to bring in guest artists from Japan, Italy and other countries, whom he says all have a unique style to offer. A Japanese artist may be influenced by the traditional dragons and boldly colored flowers found in Asian art, while an Italian artist may draw ideas from the sparse grays and lines of classical Italian sculpture.

In the U.S. tattoos have their roots in the 1940s, a time when sailors returned to their sweethearts fresh inked from a foreign land. “If you talk to your grandmother about a tattoo, she’s most likely picturing an anchor with a name in it…” he says.

Alexander’s own tattoo style tends toward the mystical; he loves religious symbols, folklore and gothic art incorporating details from stained glass and wrought iron. He once covered a man’s arm in magical symbols to ward off evil spirits. But he also enjoys somewhat sentimental pieces, like a watercolor-inspired tattoo he did of someone’s pet dog.

Tattoos, he says, are a joint effort between the artist and the client. “Your energy combines with their energy,” he says. “You collaborate.”

Often in his work, Alexander finds inspiration in the work of classic artists, looking to Alphonse Mucha for art nouveau style lilies, or reproducing a scene with an angel and devil from a Renaissance painting. “You have to stand on the shoulders of giants to see far,” he says. “I like to think occasionally I get that chance.”

He must be doing something right, because last week a client came all the way from Japan to have him fix a tattoo she didn’t trust anyone else to touch.

People come to Alexander for different reasons. He has been tattooing Tim Coady, a retired custodian from South Boston, for eight years. After a knee injury, Coady started going to him twice a month to have a sleeve done. He says the tattoo process helped take his mind off the pain in his knee. “When he was doing it I’d pay attention to the details and it distracted me,” said Coady.

Aya Hashimoto, Alexander’s girlfriend who works as Witch City Ink’s bookkeeper, got her first tattoo last month, a detailed poppy flower on her right shoulder. Japanese by birth, Hashimoto grew up with a negative image of tattooing — in Japan, they are associated with a criminal organization, the Yakuza, who often cover their bodies with samurai and dragon images. After she moved to America, her perception changed. “After meeting Natan and his friends I realized tattoos are art,” she smiles.

Of his life’s work, Alexander says, “It’s an intense responsibility.” He practices his tattoos painstakingly before they ever get to the human form, talking over ideas with clients and sketching them out on tracing paper so they can be laid over the skin and envisioned beforehand. In 15 years Alexander’s art has often helped make clients look slimmer. It’s commemorated dead pets and relatives. And marked love affairs that some may later wish could be forgotten.

“Tattoos mark time,” he says. “Your beliefs, your loves, your passions at that time, who you were, what you felt…”

For most people that may sound serious, but for Alexander it’s all in a day’s work.

The full article by Kristin D’Agostino, complete with photos of our first customer being tattooed is avaiable on the Salem Gazett’s website, head on over and have a look.

Thanks to Wicked Local for letting us reprint this portion of the article.

International Guest Artists at Witch City Ink

Tattoo Artists from Japan and LA guesting at Witch City Ink 2008.

Witch City Ink is truly an International destination each year with friends dropping in from studios from around the world. Last years Boston Tattoo Convention saw artists HoriRyu and Nene spending a week with the crew after the convention. Below are some photos from the event:

Guest Artists HoriRyu and Nene from Japan and LA

Guest Artists HoriRyu and Nene from Japan and LA

After hanging out with us all at the BTC last year, Japanese Tattoo artist HoriRyu started a large Japanese dragon on Natans leg. The initial design began with a 5 hour outline session.

This is what we do for fun!

This is what we do for fun!

Here’s a better photo of HoriRyu’s Dragon Leg Sleeve outline on N^T^N after the Boston Tattoo Convention. HoriRyu and Natan will complete the tattoo when Natan works at his studio in Tokyo in 2009.

This will be finished in Japan next year.

Another Satisfied Customer

Another Satisfied Customer

Another Satisfied Customer

Artist: Steve Gillespie
Customer: Erik Hudak

Erik Hudak from Marblehead Massachusetts allowed us to take advantage of the photo opportunity while being tattooed by Steve Gillespie of Witch City Ink. Erik decide to take advantage of our walk-in tattooing availability on President’s Day , Monday , February 16 of 2009. It looks as though we have another satisfied customer at Witch City Ink.

Witch City Ink Opening Party in Print- Prick Magazine

Prick Magazine Opening Notice, 2008

Prick Magazine Opening Notice, 2008

Subject: Witch City Ink Opening Party

Celebrating the opening of the Witch City Ink location in beautiful downtown Salem , Massachusetts was a lovely evening in June of 2008. Friends and family gathered for the festivities and Prick Magazine was there to capture it all. The tattoo shop has an eclectic feel and is filled with treasures collected from Natan’s travels throughout the world.