All my life I promised myself that I’d never get a tattoo of anybody, no matter what. I remember a period of time when many of my friends would be getting tattoos of their girlfriends. Are they still with those girlfriends? I’ll let you take a guess. I swore up and down that I’d never get anyone’s name or face tattooed on my body. That was until a few weeks ago. My wife and I are heading towards our thirtieth wedding anniversary. Isn’t that wild? Thirty years! I think after all these years we’ve been together, I might ignore my ‘no tattoos of another person promise’ and give it to her as a bit of a surprise. She’s given me three children and stood by me through everything. Besides, I honestly can’t see us ever getting divorced. I suppose if a divorce ever did happen, I’m sure I could think of a good cover up tattoo idea. Maybe I could turn her face into something else. Anyway, I’m going to stop talking about this stuff. Sometimes I worry that even joking about something like divorce could cause it to happen! It might sound odd but I do believe it’s possible to accidentally manifest something or jinx oneself.
My wife doesn’t know this, but I did a huge rummage through all our photos over the years. I wanted to find an image that really captured her personality. Perhaps a photo of her smiling and looking happy. Her smile is why I fell in love with her. I’ll never forget when she first smiled at me. It was like her eyes were smiling at me too. I want this tattoo to capture this memory.
Yesterday I visited the best realism tattoo artist based in Brisbane. I showed them a photo of my wife and they started drawing. This artist was truly amazing. The picture they drew captured not only the nuanced features in her face, but it somehow captured her personality. I’ve shown my kids the sketch too because I wanted a second opinion. They also loved it!