Hello all! So, Its been a busy few weeks at Speakeasy tattoo. Jane Cho has been working hard and spicing up her gallery every day. Also, we have a new addition to the studio, Jesse Gomez who beautifully explores the environment and natural world through tattoo and illustration. Go check out his gallery on the website and get acquainted with his stellar technique. Scott Glazier has been as busy as ever and is now booking out to the year 2019. If you have a tattoo in mind, set

One thing that can really bring an artist down is the repetition of administrative work. It tends to be one of the biggest annoyances for the creative brain but is a necessity for any artist that hopes to have longevity and success in business. It seems to be relative, the more successful you are the more administrative work you will have to do. Obviously, one can’t live without the other. I’m talkin e-mail correspondence (answering submission forms, forming a contact with th

Hello all! Today we will be talking about some helpful information when coming to Speakeasy Tattoo in Los Angeles. As Scott Glazier would say, “the information highway is wide open.” If you are coming in from out of town, as most of our clients are, you can benefit from this blog today. This info can be helpful when getting a tattoo at our studio, or most studios in LA. First and foremost, we want to talk about the preparation of the skin and body leading up to the day of the

Hello all you tattoo lovers out there! Today I just wanted to have a little check in with ya all to give an update of my status as an artist and apprentice. Evolution is key and progression is imperative. I’m nearing in on my one-year mark and have learned so much. I have realized that, as with most all the paths that I have chosen in life, it usually takes about one year to really set a learned behavior into an automatic routine. I am starting to feel more confident about th

One last flower in this garden of earthly delights. The Lotus flower is among one of the most famous in the kingdom of tattoo flowers. This very versatile bud has a number of meanings based on color, depiction, and religion. Though this style of tattoo has become a staple in most modern tattoo artist repertoire, it takes it roots in religion and is derived from Eastern culture. The lotus is worn by both men and women and is known to grow in muddy water, yet has the symbolic e

Part 3 Even more flowers that bloom on our arms, legs, backs, and many other places for seeds to pollinate. The peony, known as “the King of Flowers” in Japanese art, is yet another staple of the flower tattoo realm. This flower type signifies good fortune, wealth, and prosperity. It is also seen as a symbol of beauty and risk taking; accompanied with a mild sense of fragility. This is a way to comment on the fleeting nature of existence, and how only great rewards and knowle

Part 1 Flower tattoos seem to be a blossoming art style that brings meaning and specificity to every tattoo that they intend to enhance. They can be the centerpiece or just an accessory creating a beautiful timeless tattoo. Meaning behind flowers used in tattoo art is just as vast and wide as there are flowers in the world.  That being said, there are many meanings that differentiate from culture to culture; this can be very overwhelming. So, for those of you who don’t happen

Over the last couple of weeks, I have given a very brief description of a few of the many vast and differing tattoo styles. Each and every one can exist as its own blog topic, and over the course of my apprenticeship at Speakeasy Tattoo I will take time here and there to go into more detail. So, here is a technique that definitely deserves a much more in depth description. The technique I am referring to is Trash Polka. Throughout art history we have seen a journey and behavi

Hi all! It’s time for a check in, no tattoo info today. So, today is officially the 8-month mark in my apprenticeship at Speakeasy Tattoo in Los Angeles. I can’t believe it! The only way I can express how quickly time has gone over these last few months is to say it is like lightning moving at a glacial pace. I have learned so much and f@*$ed up a lot! It comes with the territory of being a new apprentice. But, I’m not all shiny and new anymore. I get the death stare from Sco

Tattoo Style 101 Have you ever wondered what the real differences are between tattoo types? There are many easy to recognize differences that set one tattoo apart from another, and can classify it into a certain vein. Here I will explain a quick go to guide for beginners to the differentiate emerging tattoo styles; old and new. Traditional Traditional tattoo (after ancient tribal technique) is considered one of the oldest forms of tattoo known to the modern world. It is also

Chances are, if you have a lot of ink, one day your beautiful sweet mini me is going to want some ink as well. Now, it’s not necessarily a given that you do or do not want your kid owning some ink someday, but it’s best to impress upon them the permanence of owning body art and the right time to go down that road. Putting art on your body is some serious lifetime kinda stuff and needs to be treated as so. I know more people than I can count who have gone out and gotten the re

My mentor, Scott Glazier, said something the other day at Speakeasy Tattoo that struck me as very paradoxical. He said, “once you tattoo your hands, you are always tattooed”. This kinda perplexed me, coming from a man who has tattoos covering a large percentage of his body, I thought he was already always tattooed. Once he clarified I realized that the difference is the way other people perceive you. As a man with copious amounts of body ink, you can cover it all up with a su

Well, here I am designing a tattoo… not just any tattoo; MY tattoo. Sounds simple enough, right? Being a tattoo apprentice, six months deep…It should be as easy as drinkin scotch in the middle of the afternoon. Yeah, not so much. You would think everything would come easy, to create something for myself rather than designing for someone who I have only met once. Quite the contrary. There is a strange connect/disconnect that happens when designing a tattoo. A connection to a s

So, here’s a pretty pertinent question… what’s the 411 on the INK? Inks can be made up of all kinds of delicious toxic materials, from titanium dioxide, to carbon black, all the way to automobile paint. Interestingly enough though, while the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) does regulate the substances that people ingest and put on their skin, they do not regulate the substances or inks that people put under their skin. Also, the FDA is no help in requiring ink makers to lis

Something I have run into more than a couple times at Speakeasy Tattoo in Los Angeles is when someone inevitably passes out while getting a tattoo. It seems to be pretty common place and nothing to be embarrassed about. I have seen the most bad ass of dudes go down in an instant and not even realize what happened till after the fact. It happens more than you would think, but there are a couple things that you can do to prepare yourself for getting a tattoo and keeping it toge

One of the coolest things I have found as a Tattoo Apprentice at Speakeasy Tattoo in Los Angeles is, how I am constantly learning in very different ways. You may read this and think, well yes…obviously. But there is a very interesting way that learning to Tattoo not only takes on the process of training in a new practice, but also learning a whole new idea. Now, aside from the daily expedition one goes on when trying to hone a new craft, there is also a really amazing psychol

Blackwork tattoos are a type of tattoo that is not for the faint of heart. These very specific and consuming tattoos are ones, typically of geometric patterns and shapes, that cover the skin with the purest of pure all black solid ink.  As an apprentice at Speakeasy Tattoo in Los Angeles I see black tattoos all the time, but very rarely do we see when a person wants a blackout tattoo.  Blackout tattoos are said to be inspired by neo-tribal tattoos and intended to be an evolut

The stigmas that surround tattoos have always been fascinating to me; mainly because I find it interesting that certain people in the United States pass judgement on something that has been at the base of cultural traditions for thousands of years. I try my best to always keep an open mind in all aspects of life, so, that’s why I address this experience as something worth investigating, analyzing, and informing rather than passing judgement or disregard over someone who comes