Luis Shares Two Lotería Cards

I met Luis in Borders, Penn Plaza, last month and asked him about his tattoos. He has more than fifteen altogether, and three are based on Lotería cards, which are used as part of a Mexican bingo game, as well as in fortune-telling.

He shared two of these cards with me and explained that, as a first generation Mexican-American, these Lotería cards remind him of growing up.

The first one he explained is number 21, La Mano:

Luis explained that he relates to this card because "la mano" is Spanish for hand, and  he is a builder/electrician/carpenter by trade. He considers himself a "designer of ideas," and because he works with his hands, this is an appropriate card to have as a tattoo.

The second one he let me photograph is number 27, El corazón:

This card is appropriate, according to Luis, because "El corazón" means the heart and, Luis said, smiling, "I've got a big one".

There are a lot of different artistic representations of these cards out on the web, which tells me that they serve as inspiration for a lot of people.

Image courtesy of "The Lucky W" Amulet Archive by Cat Yronwode

Luis had these tattoos done by a tattoo artist named Fish, who was visiting Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn, but generally works out of Th'ink Tank Tattoo in Denver. Work from Th'ink Tank appeared here once before.

Thanks to Luis for sharing these two Lotería cards with us here on Tattoosday!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

from one of the greatest movies of all time comes this song: ray charles - that spirit of christmas



national lampoons christmas vacation with chevy chase was,is and will always be my favorite christmas holiday movie.

HANDS III

Marisa's Polychrome Calves

I met Marisa walking down 40th Street in Manhattan late one October afternoon. She had just crossed Broadway when I spotted her and asked her about her tattoos. Namely, these two gracing the back of her calves:

These tattoos are based on the work of artist John R. Neill, who illustrated L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz books. The female figure in both designs is Polychrome, the Rainbow's daughter.

Both legs were tattooed at Rock Star Tattoos in Honolulu. Conor did the left calf:

and Kazan did the right:

Marisa has 11 tattoos in all. Incidentally, having heard she grew up in Hawai'i, I played the small-world game with her and discovered we both had the same history teacher, two decades apart, when he taught at different schools.

Like many people who have Oz tattoos, Marisa loved the books and was inspired by the magic in them, vividly illustrated.

Thanks to Marisa for stopping on the street and consenting to share her wonderful tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

OUTCH

we recently blogged this picture. now we now its a crazy art idea by mary coble.

YIMMY'S YAYO

in case you liek tattoo's you should check out YIMMY'S YAYO more often. its one good source for our tattoo database.

IN CASE...

...you like tattoos but cant take the pain of for whatever other reason dont want to get inked you can maybe get friends with this stuff here.