About that henna tattoo…

I mentioned that I got a henna tattoo while I was at the festival, and that the artist immediately went with one of the more common themes that have been submitted. The good news is that skin grafts take henna very well, as you can see:

And now you can see my leg in all its scarred glory. I wish I had written down the name of the artist so I could give credit where due. If you see this and want credit (your name attached to this post) leave a comment saying where I got the tattoo other than my leg, IOW where on the planet did I get the tattoo so I know you’re the real person that did the tattoo.

PSA, Opus.

Advertisement

Sunburned and sore, I’m back from my Spring Break

I am returned from a very “eventful” event. I still haven’t caught up on my e-mails yet (only 199 unread messages to go!) but suffice it to say I had a good time. Quick observations: Riding a hardtail MTB with a decade old plastic saddle is not good for the sitz bones. Sunscreen and long sleeves are your friends on a camping trip. Spreading aloe vera on sunburned teens can be entertaining, especially if that aloe has been kept at a comfy 35°F. Spending 4 days in the bush is NOT the “perfect” time to detox from a 120 oz. a day Diet Mt. Dew habit. While the 15YO US Army surplus sleeping pad was no longer up to the job of keeping me comfy at night, the 40YO Dutch Army sleeping bag was in spite of the flooding thunderstorm the first night of the campout. Henna works on skin grafts, I have a wonderful temp tattoo that will be posted as soon as I find my camera and plug it in to the desktop computer that has GIMP loaded on it to make the image blog-friendly. I took part as a model in a photo shoot for a pin-up calendar, more on that in a later post. Next event I will be coordinating the use of cargo bikes as a replacement for the golf carts that are rapidly aging out of service at the event site, much more on that in a later post. I didn’t ride my bike to this event unlike the last one where I rode my 1983 Stratus (almost) to the event back in 2006. That ride ended with my getting a hitched ride about 50 miles shy of my destination after rubbing a hole over my tailbone when the cushion collapsed on the original RANS hardshell seat (replacement cushion under the original upholstery), which has made m a minor celebrity at the event.

PSA, Opus

Art contest and rules, Wreck-Free Sunday (CONTEST CLOSED)

I have been making this announcement for several days, that I would be having a contest for a tattoo to put on this.

That is what I have had to deal with every day of my life for the last 11 years, reminding me that the LEO assigned to my case was of the opinion that the wreck was mostly my fault for not being in a car, not the nutcase that made the u-turn to get on my side of the road and come back to hit me.

What I’m looking for is a design that either covers the scar, or that integrates the scar into the design in such a way as to make the whole thing beautiful rather than an ugly reminder of death and destruction.

The rules: the submission must be on this image as a base layer. It is suggested that the submitted image be integrated into a single layer while saving a separate image of the design without the leg image for the tattoo artist to work from to apply the design to the leg. The canvas (me) will be the final arbiter of what looks good on my leg. The contest starts today, and runs through June 1, 2013. The wining entry will be posted in the Wreck-Free Sunday post the next day. The winner will either get Five Benjamins in his/her hot little fist if located local to DFW, in which case the option to get a picture posted of the transaction in the following weeks Sunday post may be exercised at the agreement of both the artist and the canvas (me), or a credit union check (guaranteed payment by my “bank”) will be sent to non-local or otherwise unable to get the $$ physically. There will be only the one prize, and all entries remain the property of the submitter until selected as the winner. Winner will retain the option of publishing the work on their web site first, with posting on my blog to happen either with the announcement of winning, or when the tattoo is completed at which point it becomes my artwork to publish (my leg, my artwork on the leg).

Judging criterion: Totally arbitrary. Since the scar is almost totally numb I’m not concerned about how much I’m going to get poked and stabbed during the tattoo process although I would like to minimize this. The design will be judged on how well it integrates the existing features of the scar into the design or on how well it obscures the scar from view. Your choice on what way you want to go, work with what’s already there to make it beautiful, or cover it up to make it beautiful. The operative phrase on this is “make it beautiful”. Make it something I will love to look at instead of something I hate.

HOW TO SUBMIT AN ENTRY Make a comment to this post that you have an entry to get an e-mail addy to send the image to. Sorry about forgetting to put this in with the original post…

PSA, Opus