Fresh Ink, or--Happy Father's Day, Charlie!

Charlie has expensive tastes. For nearly every gift-giving situation of our marriage, I have pleaded with him--in advance--for gift ideas for him. The usual suspects are:

a motorcycle
a new car (update: we bought the FJ Cruiser on his birthday two years ago!)
a tattoo

I have a personal policy against us owning a motorcycle while we are diapering an infant, so a tattoo it was for this past Father's Day. We found a place and met the artist--Rafael Coleman--who owns Iron Horse in Shreveport.












We decided to go with a photograph I took of Charlie playing with Jackson at our friend Tara's pool party on the Fourth of July last year. Jackson was just two months old (almost to the day). Here's the original photo (after Charlie applied his mad Photoshop skills):









First, Rafael drew up a tracing which he applied to Charlie's shoulder where he wanted the tattoo.









First cut is the deepest.












Mister Charlie, Rafael's pet spider, who lives in a very thin glass container mere inches from the tattoo chair...













Jackson waits patiently...



It's gettin' there.









A shot of Rafael's ride while you wait.









GORGEOUS!