After years of planning and researching, I actually got up the nerve yesterday to take my sketch to a tattoo artist... and it failed miserably :o(

I made a really rough sketch of what I wanted it to look like...

I wanted it to be pretty much an upper arm half sleeve... a rustic drawing/painting type tattoo of a wine glass surrounded by sunflowers and vines with lyrics from "Bartender" inside the glass.

I set up a consultation with an impressive tattoo artist who is about an hour away. Well I showed him my sketch, and he shot it down in about 5 seconds saying that the font was too small who would eventually spread into a blob. This being my first tattoo I definitely don't know the ins and outs of getting one so I was definitely open to suggestions. But he gave me none. No advice or offer to do a sketch of what he thought would work. I was so bummed. Then he asks so when do I want to set up an appointment??? I then asked him if he was going to do a sketch of idea that would work... and he said maybe a couple days before and if I wanted to change anything, he would do it right then. I didn't like that really because I wanted it planned out before hand. The stress and pressure of doing it right then might cause me to make a decision I'm not happy with. Because I look for ways to get out of uncomfortable situations. So I told him I was going to hold off and see if I could work out something myself. It seemed like he didn't want to do it at all. Maybe because I didn't look punk or want something dark. And I know I have seen text tattoos in small places and long text tattoos. Pete met up with a tattoo artist who seems cool, he's from California... he was much nicer than the guy I was talking to. So Pete has Sunday set to get his tattoo of an ohm on his calf. He's really excited :o)

Anyways so after that I was really discouraged. I thought about giving it up.

But I decided to look one more time for a decent place to go. I accidentally came across this place called Moo Tattoo while looking up reviews for Na Ka Oi Tiki Tattoo... which got mixed reviews on personality. So I looked more into Moo Tattoo. And there is this amazing artist there, Shawn Dubin (http://www.shawndubin.com/). I don't know if he'll be like the guy from Sink the Ink, but I decided to give it a shot. So I sent them an email explaining everything from years of planning and researching to what happened yesterday. I asked if they would look at an emailed sketch of what I wanted to tell me if it was possible, if there was something we could do to make it work or if they just didn't want to do it.

And they responded within half an hour saying "Sure! Send any sketches and we'll get the process started!"

So I'm a tad excited! ...but still trying not to get my hopes up too much lol.