The Gay Little Butterfly All or Nothing tattoo apprentice article

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The Gay Little Butterfly by Scott Olive
Apprentice at All or Nothing Tattoo

I am an apprentice at the prestigious All Or Nothing Tattoo studio in Atlanta, GA. I have been studying under the staff there for several months and learning the importance of artistic creativity, attention to detail, and preparation. There is no finer venue to learn these traits than the gallery here in Atlanta with Brandon Bond, DJ Minor, Albie Rock and Dave Tedder. These acclaimed artists work constantly at collaborating on ideas and exchanging thoughts and concepts about artwork. Recently I was the lucky recipient of an incredible example of collaborative tattooing from Brandon Bond and Albie Rock. Brandon and Albie decided they would love to do a collaborative tattoo together. I begged for them to do it on me since I knew it would be an amazing piece as they are two of the best artists in America. I was completely unaware of the image they were creating, they simply told me not to worry, that it would be amazing and representative of my apprenticeship. The only input from my end was that I wanted something to do with animals. They decided to tell a story of my apprenticeship.
	The main imagery of the piece is a pitbull puppy. The reason this was chosen was because Brandon's pitbulls recently had puppies and I've had to watch and feed the puppies when Brandon needs a puppy sitter. The specific puppy that was tattooed on me was chosen because that puppy is being given to Albie, which has since been named "Bundy". This tiny little pitbull was the first of the litter. The puppy is wearing butterfly wings and antennas because, on quite a few occasions, the guys at the shop have dressed me up as a gay little butterfly. A small price to pay to learn is such an amazing tattoo studio. The butterfly attire shows up when I make mistakes or screw up at the studio. The image of Albie's new puppy is sitting on a mushroom cloud that exploded out of a rose and a banner reading "All Or Nothing" is placed at the top. The banner has importance because it represents the mentality I am being taught about artwork and life. Brandon runs a very intense studio and with the long hours and grueling attention to artwork and client well-being my life really has become "All or Nothing". I work seven days a week and left everything in Florida to become a tattoo artist, but I genuinely want to be a "real" artist, very unlike most tattooers, I want to be like Albie, DJ, Brandon, Jime Litwalk, and Eric Merrill. I am trying to create elite artwork, and in an environment as strong as this one artistically, it is hard not to.
Brandon, being the workaholic he is, decided to set up the tattoo equipment and tattoo area the night before. This process included laying out everything and making the final stencil. We left late that night and went to my house to do collaborative pastel drawings until early the next morning. The next day we all met at the shop at 9:30 am to have coffee and muffins. Albie shaved my leg and Brandon applied the stencil. The stencil went from my ankle to my knee and was laid perfectly the first time. Once the stencil dried it was 10:30 and the outlining began. Brandon started on the banner at the top of my leg and Albie started outlining the bottom. Having two people tattoo at the same time is a very different feeling than one on one tattooing. My leg wanted to spasm and move because of the awkward feeling, but I did everything in my power to stay as still as possible because I wanted this to turn out right. Once most of the tag team outlining was done, Brandon went over some of the lines fattening them up.
	After the outlining was complete The studio began to open and Brandon had a client coming from six hours away to get tattooed by him. This is a common occurrence here at the studio, a large number of clients come from far away to get tattooed by Brandon, DJ Minor, and Albie. However this was to interrupt the collaborative process, so after Brandon started tattooing in another booth on the out of state client, Albie did some of the black shading. Brandon finished up on the other client, he returned to add even more black, as he is obsessed with black shading and candidly revealed that he still wants to put more in it. The simultaneous tattooing commenced again, Albie started coloring in the mushroom cloud and Brandon started adding his patented smooth grey drop shadows. This was interesting because Brandon was actually teaching Albie about soft grey work from his experience doing portraits and Albie was showing Brandon how he lights a cloud from the inside out. The two freely admitted that they will be stealing each others techniques immediately, giving their clients further benefit from the collaborative process. Brandon then completed the banner while Albie worked on the crossed dog bones. The whole time they discussed back and forth which colors to use where and why. I was instructed to lay there motionless and silent, I was there canvas and was told to listen closely to what they were saying but to not add anything to the conversation. This was an amazing window into the mind of two artistic geniuses who both get along incredibly well with each other and are not afraid to tell it like it is.
Before starting the piece, they had a lot of colors chosen for specific areas. Some of those colors changed, some remained. After the banner, the mushroom cloud, the crossed dog bones and the butterfly accessories on the dog were colored in, Albie started working on the dog. He used an actual picture of the dog for reference for the markings on the dog. He used a little light grey and blue to make it very soft and not completely white. The result was incredible and could have only been done by Albie. No one else in the world would have colored it exactly that way. Brandon then climbed in and did amazingly smooth fades from turquoise to white with bright pink trim on the rose. Again no one on earth tattoos quite as brightly as the new stuff Brandon has been doing. The photos really do not do this piece justice. It is bright enough to blind small children. After the rose, the tattoo was completed. There was also about two or three hours where the tattoo was being done by both Brandon and Albie so that bumps it up to about 13 or 14 hours. All or Nothing tattoo studio is a 100% drug free environment at all times, I did not use any painkillers or sedatives. We did not even use a topical spray. The session was painful at times, but really not that bad. Both Brandon and Albie use Pulse tattoo machines (http://www.pulsetattoo.com/) exclusively, giving the session a very soft and mellow feel. The experience of having two incredibly talented and well respected artists work on me and collaborate was amazing. I'm very grateful to have been part of this wonderful experience and have such awesome people come together to do such an amazing tattoo. -Scott Olive

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