My first tattoo (part 1)

Once I got a temporary tattoo, of the ones you attach from a sticker with warm water and look like a real tattoo for a couple of hours, then start peeling away and look like shit for the next month. I think I remember me and my high-school classmates getting it during a school trip.

I almost forgot I had it on my left shoulder when, a couple of days later at my parent’s home, I was bare torso, shaving after a shower.

I was all focused on trimming my 90’s goatee, when I heard a suffocated scream coming from the bathroom doorway. My mum, entering with a basket of dirty laundry for the washing machine, saw my tattooed arm and almost fainted. She was pale, leaning against the wall, shaking, mumbling “Tell me…please tell me…it’s not…real …”

Very confused and a bit worried, I followed her gaze to my arm and realized her shock was due to the tribal ink on display upper arm.

I had to calm her down and explain it was not a real tattoo, showing her it was already peeling away.

No, my mum didn’t like tattoo.

Anyway, that was just a story to introduce the fact that I never had a tattoo. Not because my mum: I love her and I tried to never disappoint her too much or give her troubles, but I would have got inked if I wanted. It’s just that I never found a compelling reason to do it. So no tattoos.

Flash forward 25 years or so, to summer 2019. I received a mail via this site on August, and since I am an idiot, I didn’t set up the notifications correctly and I read it only on September.

It was a guy, Raphael, that saw my work online and had an idea for a tattoo. He asked me if I could drawn it. Sure, — I wrote back after more than one month — what do you have in mind?

He wanted a drawing of the house where he and his girlfriend met and lived together: the tattoo would be split in half, part on him and part on his girlfriend.

I’ve never heard about or saw something like this, but, hey, I am no tattoo expert, am I?

So I accepted the commission and I went seeing the house. It turned out, it was just behind my place.

I sat on an abandoned couch left on the street corner, and I drew the building from different angles.

I send Raphael a draft, we went back and forth for a bit. When he gave me the green-light, I finally sent him the finished sketch in October.

He liked it and payed me as agreed.

Will this ever been tattooed?, I was left wondering…

Until this January, when I got a message from the tattoo artist that inked Raphael and his GF.

To be continued…