Tattoo Tuesdays: Her white blank page...and a swelling rage

I was listening to my Mumford & Sons Pandora radio station today and across the airwaves came, perhaps my favorite song by these talented fellows, White Blank Page*. This song comes on and I want to stop what I'm doing. I want to absorb the lyrics, poetic infused that they are and just listen. It is one of the songs I sit and think, "Please Lord (I'm being sincere right now) give me the opportunity to pour words out to someone like this someday." I think we can all agree "Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life," is a feeling we can admit to having, even on a spiritual level, if not a romantic one.

I wanted a tattoo that would put this song to good use and do it justice. So I went "a'Googling" and didn't come up with much. The search brought up mostly word tattoos, which is fine, just isn't striking the mood for today. Option 2 was to do some tumbling on Tumblr . . . and this is what I found.



Jason Perkins Photography**

I can picture what my mum and some of my more conservative acquaintances would say right off about this picture. I'm almost inclined to go down that path myself. Then I think, she looks happy, she looks at home in her skin. Is it not a feeling we all want? She has decorated her skin with art and she holds in her arms the next chapter of her life...her white blank page. I wish I could be there when this little girl is growing up. Watching as the curiosity gets the better of her and to hear the stories her mum is going to tell her about the gorgeous neck tattoo she is wearing and the reason for each inking.

 

In other Tattoo News:

You can now follow someone on Twitter who features bookish tattoos, check it out @literarytattoos!

featuring via a friend on G+

Tattooed Hands . . . (sigh) a weakness.

*In this video, I love how the bookstore shelves "Wales, Arthurian" and "Creatures, Fairy". Can I go there?


**After Googling his photography, I'm a little worried I should clear my web browsing history.*** In my defense I was only trying

to link to the original photo to give him the credit. So let this be your warning . . . don't leave me nasty comments on here or anywhere I post the link saying "Oh Maddie what were you thinking looking at such things," because it was completely with innocent intentions. I'm not robbing you of your opinion, simply asking please don't judge me and don't judge him . . . it is his art.

*** I realize, some of you, after reading this sidenote are going to do this very thing. Go and Google Jason Perkins . . . oh you silly people. (insert smile)

Tattoo Tuesdays: It's a Jamboree!

I suppose the only real celebration to be had is that...I'm back! Tattoo Tuesdays is one of my favorite posts and you know something else, it is my mum's favorite too. I mention that because it is funny to me. She is strongly against tattoos, especially with my considerations for getting one, but loves to hear what I have to say about the various tattoos I come across. Maybe we should have an interview with mum sometime, to get to the bottom of this phenomenon.

Here's a time where I wish I could give my shyness a nice beating. This past week I was in Chicago for a business trip. I of course visited a local Barnes & Noble (in the Schaumburg area). The gal that rang up my purchases had a tattoo, but not just any tattoo. A bookish tattoo! An awesome bookish tattoo!!!  Curses! Why couldn't I find the courage to ask her for a picture? 'Barnes & Noble cool tattoo cashier' if you read this, please send me a picture (insert pleading smile).

Are any of you familiar with Macaulay Culkin's smash hit (in my opinion) The Pagemaster? For shame, if you answered no or looked at me with that deer in the headlights look, as one of my friends did.

Richard (Culkin) is a cowardly boy, in what starts out as a live action film. He quickly finds himself turned animated illustration in a world of BOOKS! His fellow cartoon friends happen to be books each representing a different classic genre. There is Adventure, resembling a pirate and voiced by Patrick Stewart. Then there is Fantasy dressed to impress fairy style and voiced by Whoopi Goldberg. The more cowardly and sad, Horror, than as his name would suggest, is voiced by Frank Welker.

I used to watch this film over and over again as a kid. I think it is time to find it and watch it again!

The tattoo featured each of the books and spanned the entire length of her left arm. Half of the tattoo was in color, while the other half was only in the outline stage. She was headed back to the shop the next day for another 8 to 9 hours in the chair! At least I had the courage to talk to her about the tattoo. She told me her other arm would be next with an Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton style, tattoo. Again if you find this post...please send pictures. :)

Also, because this post wouldn't be complete without some actual inkings...here are some recent favorites worth seeing.

Click the picture for a cool backgroud story about this tattoo.

Advertising is the ability to sense, interpret... to put the very heart
throbs of a business into type, paper and ink.
~Leo Burnett

Tattoo Tuesdays: The bravest of all is Madeline...I'm not that Madeline

Growing up you can imagine the number of folks who would walk up to me upon discovering my name and see them try to resist the urge to pinch my cheeks. Why...because here I am in the flesh, Madeline. All I needed was the outfit and I would have been set. It gave relatives the excuse to shower me with any number of Madeline themed gifts: banks, puppets, hats, books, voodoo dolls....ok well maybe not. While my animated/book counterpart is a force to be reckoned with, fFrench, fearless, and perhaps feisty, I am not in fact named after her. Actually my name isn't even spelled the same.

My parents, ever the odd the sort (aka not going with the norm), gave us each unique names and that meant spelling them differently from anyone else. My name in fact is Madelyne (pronounced Mad-eh-lyne) not Madeline (pronouced Mad-eh-line or however the French accent it). I was named after Madeline Kahn...hilarious woman and at the time my parent's favorite actress.

Where is this going? Well, I was in search of a literary themed tattoo to feature today and thought who better to feature than my, would be (mistakenly), namesake Madeline; which led to some rather interesting ideas for a future tattoo for me. Ludwig Bemelmans' illustrations do lend themselves to some inking. Have I found my inspiration? If I was a sketcher, I would sketch out the design in my head that I got while searching for someone who had sent their Madeline tattoo out into the ether. However, as it is I think the tattoo I found, while cute, is a fake tattoo...nonetheless a tattoo for Tattoo Tuesdays. :)

Found via a site I'm now adding to my must follow list... Boys With Banjos.


In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines
Lived twelve little girls in two straight lines
In two straight lines they broke their bread
And brushed their teeth and went to bed.
They left the house at half past nine
In two straight lines in rain or shine-
The smallest one was Madeline.

 

Looking for Madeline online I found this wikiHow and thought it to be sound advice. I couldn't pass up the chance to share.