Page 11 of Yours Truly

“Obviously this ain’t gonna be someone’s ink but for the sake of teaching, I’ll show you my process. Every artist establishes their own, but here’s mine.” Quickly, I add detail to the trigger and trigger guard, switching back to a thicker graphite to emphasize the angular opening of the barrel. “I sketch with pencil and paper first. Always. I know a lot of artists have moved to iPads, but my best work is done on paper.”

“Same,” she says, and that singular word has my hand pausing, my head turning, and my eyes meeting hers.

“You’re young to be old-school,” I comment, noticing a tiny cluster of gold near her left pupil, floating amongst the deep cerulean shade. Beautiful eyes this Firecracker has.

“I’m self-taught and was raised on a fixed income so iPads and tablets weren’t really an option.”

I nod, forcing myself to focus back on the last bit of the quick sketch. “Line work is the core of tattooing. See how this singular sketch embodies several different strokes to provide texture and depth?”

“Yes,” she says softly, exercising a tone I didn’t think she had. As shitty as it was for me to flake yesterday, she’s letting it go because she wants to learn— even if I didn’t apologize.

“I find it much easier to reach the level of complexity I want with paper and pencil. They swear to me it can be done digitally but like I said, I prefer this.” I sign the bottom of the sketch from habit, and swivel in my chair to face the counter in the corner. “Now this is what I use, but other artists here at Ink Time have their own process, so it’s up to you.”

“Before you move on to the stencil,” Ivy comments, giving me pause. I haven’t even shown her the stencil printer, but she already knows. Then again, she was here all day yesterday. Without me.

I cock a brow, interested in her question, but I don’t turn around. Not just yet. “What’s up?”

“The pen you use, do you have a cartridge that holds different sizes or do you swap the pen each time you want to change line size?” She’s intentional with her question, enunciating and speaking slowly. And when I swivel back to face her, I find her taking notes in an old spiral notebook.

I did that too when I first started. And I read through my own notes daily, staying up till all hours practicing each night.

“I use a pen with a cartridge, so when I need to change strokes, it’s all in the pen. Same tool the whole time.”

She nods, tipping her head toward her notebook to jot down my answer. When she’s done, her gaze returns to the stencil printer on the table, and she waits.

“C’mere and watch,” I say over my shoulder, hitting the button on the printer. Sensing her behind me, I feed the sketched paper through. “Some machines only print stencils from digital work, which means you need a separate scanner. This machine is designed for old-school guys like me. You put your sketch through and it prints it on thermal paper, giving you a nice little stencil.”

I hear her graphite sliding along her notebook, and the sound lifts a thousand pounds of invisible weight from my chest, lightening me in ways I never expected.

Going back to the basics is all it is. Hearing her sketch reminds me of my start, before I was attached, before I was a big name, before anything. She reminds me of the pure love of the art that I felt when I started.

And that’s the only reason my chest is light and my insides are fucking vibrating.

I ask her to sketch something quick and small, and stand behind her as she draws a small knife. I’m surprised by my urges to ask her what type of artist she wants to be, where she sees herself going creatively, and where she wants to corner herself in the tattoo world.

Truth is, I’m the one getting asked, I’m the one doing interviews, I’m the one with eyes focused on me while people wait to see what I’m up to. I’m not used to giving a shit about someone else. I don’t want to care. It’s too much of a liability.

But as her hand never leaves the paper, the dull roar of graphite on cardstock filling the space with beautiful, familiar music, I can’t help myself. I’ve never wanted to know so much about a damn near stranger before.

She’s captured my focus, and I don’t like it.

“Could use some more depth and shadowing,” I tell her, carefully placing bricks between us, one shitty comment at a time. Her sketch is beautiful and if I’m being honest, she’s a whole hell of a lot better than I was at her age. “And if you’re going to corner your sketches on?—”

“Blackwork,” she says, her pencil still moving as she focuses on the piece. “I’m a blackwork artist and I lean toward the macabre.”

Same as me when I started.

No one would know that, though, because I made my name as Trace Calhoun, the Neo Traditional God of Ink. The Travel Channel sent me around the world as Trace Tats, which later turned into Needle Ninjas when my drinking got bad and they invited more artists. We traveled, covering people in the art they dreamed of, made into my style. Art Nouveau meets Art Deco is where I thrive, but blackwork is where I started. The Travel Channel told me there wasn’t enough showmanship and possibility in blackwork. And I wanted so badly to have something to move on to that I changed my entire style.

“Think you’ll get a lot of customers here in Bluebell wanting dagger and skulls on ’em?” I question almost rhetorically, since we both know the answer. It doesn’t matter who lives around the shop, she should absolutely follow her passion. What’s the point of being a goddamn artist if you can’t create the art in your dreams? But I don’t wanna like Ivy, so I place another brick. “Okay, that’s good enough,” I slight her incredibly detailed knife sketch, despite the fact I’m hugely impressed that her line work is so clean, and that she was able to add so many layers so quickly.

There’s a sparkle on the blade.

Engraving on the handle.

Blood pooling beneath it.

Wear on the serration.

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