Will Whitten

Ok- so my power supply has arrived. I have two tattoo machines now! (Thanks Tyler!) I am ready to start tattooing things. Where to start? Well my mentor and most of the internet seems to think that it is best to start on citrus fruit. Why? The fruit skin has a similar ability to hold ink and demonstrates how the machines work, where your needles go and how deep they are penetrating without permanently putting ink in a living thing. Sure there are downfalls the peel of a fruit doesn’t stretch or move like human skin. The next practice media will be either a Tattoo Practice Skin or a piece of pig skin. They are one step closer to actual human skin. So I have purchased my first victim  grapefruit! It is time to put in the first line. In order to stick as close to what a real tattoo experience will be like I have decided to set up and treat every session of practice like I would a real tattoo. The first step is setting up my table. I found a blog called Tattoo Nerd that has a great post about “How to Set Up a Tattoo Workstation.” I definitely will be checking this blog out aa source more often. It has a lot of pros going for it as a learning source. First off it is Canadian. Which means that will follow a lot of Canadian Health Code regulations and it will have information that applies directly to Canadian Tattooers. Although American sources share a lot of the same information some things are different in Canada. In particular Canadian access to suppliers. Also the other reason I like this Blog is that it is recent. The Workstation post is from 2013 and there are posts from 2015 as well. Which means it is still being updated.

Here is a picture of my first practice work station set up (with help from Tattoo Nerd & Tyler)

Now that I am set up and ready to go let’s ink this grapefruit!!

Here is a gratuitously dramatic video of my first ever tattoo line.

Here is the gorgeously decorated grapefruit after my first practice session with a liner. All the designs are free hand. Next week I’ll work on placing a stencil and starting to add colour and shading! Stay tuned and as always let me know what you think.