The artist I compare my work to the most is Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins. For many years I have studied his work and style of old school tattooing since I always planned to become a tattoo artist myself Now that I have finally started my tattoo apprenticeship, I really appreciate the similarities and differences that Collins and I share mind is the overall look of our art. I tend to use a limited palette of colors in my tattoo art with emphasis on shading and shadowing to create depth for tattoos the artist could choose from but they were able to achieve all shades of gray by diluting the black ink This made careful shading of the tattoo very important to convey depth and make the tattoo stand out from a drawing flattened designs. Most Old School style tattoos contain bold black outlines. This made them easy to reproduce as stencils, which would be applied to the skin with an acetate stencil and outlined with black ink before being colored and blended (Hellenbrand, 2002). Many of my current projects are faithful to this format, but it is also what I plan to change to. The visual aspects of tattoos have changed and evolved tremendously since the days of Sailor Jerry, and it's one of the things that excites me the most. . There are so many styles today that it would be impossible to do only Old School tattoos. This means I will be learning many more styles of this art form and hopefully create some of my own. Visually, anything that can be put on paper can now be put on skin. Even though I'm not tattooing yet, with...... middle of paper ......or artists, or “scratchers” as he called them, and very few quality artists (Hardy, 2005). Being a quality artist has allowed him to continue his career long after the scratchers are gone and I believe the same thing is happening today. There are many tattoo artists but few truly great ones, and soon people will recognize great tattoo art and settle for nothing but the best. The social atmosphere surrounding tattoos has changed dramatically since the 1960s, when Collins tattooed sailors and hoodlums on his back street. tattoo shop. Tattoos in general have become more socially acceptable with the old saying “everyone from soccer moms to doctors has tattoos.” While they still have a long way to go before they are fully accepted in the public eye, I feel privileged to live in a time where becoming a tattoo artist doesn't automatically make me an outsider..