American flag with eagle

Here is a tattoo I really enjoyed doing. There's better pictures in the gallery page above

A person I thought I would never be able to tattoo

My mother the last person I never thought I would ever be able to tattoo. She is probably the biggest baby when it comes to pain.  This is why I thought she would never be able to go through with it .  But with all of squealing whimpering and my father having to hold her hand she got one.

The stress

The one biggest thing you have to learn to overcome that I have noticed is the stress.  The stress of giving somebody a tattoo that they will truly love.  I find this out when a good friend of mine asks me to do a memorial tattoo for his mother.What a true honor it is to be able to give somebody a tattoo that has such a great meaning to them.  But memorial tattoos are probably the most stressful tattoos for myself to do I love doing them.  Being that this tattoo means so much to that person it has to be perfect exactly what they were looking for.

Tattoo I did for my sister

Here's my first color tattoo. It is on the left ankle of my sister.  After seeing my father's tattoo my sister had asked me if I would do one for her.  She pretty much gave me free range of what to do I thought this frog would be cool

Stencil Practice

I had asked my father to come up to the house so I can practice putting on stencils. He pick out a tribal of something he has had a urge to do for some time now. I put on my gloves shave his hairy  monkey like arms and applied the stencil.  I was surprised for a wraparound and my first time applying a stencil to someone else it lined up perfectly .  He starts looking at it in the mirror looking twisting his arm looking some more and then he turns to me and says OK let's do this.

My first tattoo

Well who will let me tattoo them first lol ya right like anyone in the right mind will let me tattoo them with me never picking up a tattoo machine. So pig skin it is I picked up some pig skin up at the Mexican shop yep.  And away I went.  Well after about 6-8 hour I'm ready for human skin  but not yet. I had gotten some good books on tattooing start reading them. Learn alot of cool stuff how to setup the machine right, how deep the needles have to go and what happens or could happen if things go wrong now I'm like wow what have I gotten myself into I'm going to put ink in someones skin for the rest of they life whats happens If i screw up. So the first tattoo was on myself I picked out a tribal tattoo. And now it with me for life.

How I got in to tattooing

  So how did i get started in this you ask. Well back when I was in high school  I wanted a tattoo bad so the day it was my 18th birthday I was in that tattoo chair. I can still remember it like yesterday it was at MacKenzie's Tattoo Inc in Carmel, New York the artist name was Scott and he did a Grim Reaper on my left shoulder. And at that point I was hooked. With in 1 yr I had gotten a few tattoos and I thought it would be cool  to learn how to do it myself.  But between the  age 19-20 with little money and a kid on the way that was not going to happen. And now at the age 32 I had just gone through  a divorce . Like most people with tattoos they tend to get tattooed when something in the life has taken a big turn. I find myself back in that tattoo chair the smell of the geensoap and the nice pain of getting tattooed again well the bug of being a tattoo artist hits me again. 

Welcome to Tattoo life by Spenc

Hello my name is Spenc an I'm 33yrs old. I just got into tattooing about 6 or so mouths ago and was thinking it be cool to start a blog on how I'm progressing as a tattooist.