BEST THING YOU EVER LEARNED

All you tattoo artists out there...whats the very best thing you ever learned from your mentor(s) ME? It was that no matter how long that I live and tattoo I will NEVER know all there is to know about this art or anything else!..TAz

The best thing that I ever learned from my mentor was how to become a rounded artist. He constantly would pretty much assign me to draw things that I wasn't even interested in drawing. I've never really liked using flash for much of anything. But If someone came in with some fucked up idea in thier head I had either drawn it already or something close enough to it that I could pull it out of my head like it was nothing... Everything else was either shown to me over time... Or... Trial and error all the way... 7

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Man TAz, I'm sure happy to hear you say that! LOL!! TCE

Yeah...but I know a LOT!!!!

Hmmmmmmm. You've probably forgotten more about tattooing than some people will ever learn..........which is fine with me. Wisdom comes with the realization of what you don't know!!!

I learned from my mentor (he knows who he is) that you need to keep and open mind, treat most with respect, and never forget where you came from..... ;o) M

I'm not sure I've learned it yet,but so far giving respect is the best way to get it.I also find myself getting more humble.

My mentor, now deceased, taught me this without saying a word: find your own way, and stick to it. Be responsible, and be your own man. He was an actor/writer/ad man, like me, and more a father than my father. Thanks for reminding me of him! Ever seen "Dr No"? the first James Bond movie? He was the first baddie killed by Bond! (the chauffeur) He always used to tell me: "I could have taken Connery with one hand from the elbow down." In the arts, he taught me: do it for love, the money will come.

Don't park in his driveway (anyone who knows Inker knows what I'm talking about). It's honestly too hard to narrow it down as so many things have stuck in my head whether it was deliberate or not. Do your best on every piece because your name is attached to it for the rest of their lives.

That would definately be to share what you know and learn. You are an artist before you are a tattoo artist. You aren't born with the knowledge, you acquire it, so treat everyone with respect and guide them as you would want to be guided. Great talent has a tendency to turn great artists into great assholes. But not to forget sanitation. Dicked up tattoos can be fixed, diseases can't.