Nate Siggard » tattoo

Bob Marley portrait re-work on Rome

Nate — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 04:24:26 +0000

I’m out at Sonic Ranch southeast of El Paso, Texas in the recording studio tattooing the Sublime with Rome guys. My old friend Eric from Tomorrow’s Nobody hit me up and asked if I could come to the studio and tattoo the band while they work on their album. I’ve done a bunch of tattoos already, and I have a couple gigs of photos and video that I have yet to share. Here’s a tattoo that I just did last night.

Rome had this old Bob Marley portrait from a few years ago that didn’t exactly look like Bob Marley so I fixed it up for him. I didn’t go over all of the black areas, so some areas that will heal completely black look slightly lighter grey. It was pretty late when we finished and we had to call it a night. I have a video I’ll post in a day or two from this session.

Get Digital – With Mike DeVries and Jamie Parker

Nate — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 23:44:27 +0000

I shot and edited this DVD back in November 2010 and it’s now available for purchase! Mike and Jamie give a thorough walk through of Photoshop and a few really creative ways for tattoo artists to take advantage of it. It was all shot in HD, and when we tried to compress it down to DVD resolution the screenshots looked less than optimal, so we included an HD digital copy on the dvd as well. This way on any computer you can watch the HD version. Just more ways I am working in your (the customers) favor. Both this DVD and the latest “Get Real” DVD will be available for instant download purchase in the next few weeks.

River Grove Tattoos

Nate — Wed, 12 May 2010 17:43:25 +0000

Anthony from the Young Hearts Collective brought a couple of his neighbors to get an epic River Grove tattoo. The five of them got tattooed back to back one Sunday afternoon.

Here are some healed photos they posted taken by Anthony Pham,

Tattoo Science: My foot tattoo collaboration

Nate — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:00:22 +0000

This past weekend was one to go down in the history books. Three days surrounded by tattoo artists in an intimate setting, researching, studying, painting, and finally tattooing. Leading the project was Guy Aitchison, and the private event was hosted by Carson Hill at Neuma headquaters.

Since Friday I’ve had the chance to meet and learn from a ton of amazing artists. Guy and his wife Michelle Wortman who does some of the most beautiful feminine tattoos I have ever had the pleasure of viewing were there for the weekend. Mike DeVries, Jeff Johnson and Josh Duffy from MD Tattoo studio stopped by Friday, Adrian Dominic came Saturday, Dan Plumley and Adam Aguas drove in from Illinois for the weekend, Kenny Morris, and Ty Mc Ewen was there the whole time getting down on some killer sketches and paintings.

On Sunday morning I was asked if I wanted to get tattooed by Guy, Carson, Dan, and Ty in a single collaborative piece. I instantly agreed. Steve from Neuma was also worked on 4 way collab style, with the artists working in 20 minute rotations. Each artist had a chance to draw a portion (or erase) the piece and then they all took turns using a large variety of tattoo machines tattooing both Steve and myself. It was an amazing opportunity to be tattooed by these artists, to learn from their years of experience this weekend, and to have a lasting piece of art to remember it by.

A special thank you to Carson, Steve and Neuma tattoo machines without which this never would have happened.

Guy Atchinson tattooing my foot, first in collaboration

Ty Mc Ewen was next, tattooing my foot.

Dan Plumley went third, and spent an extra two hours finishing my tattoo at the end

Carson Hill went fourth and then the cycle started over again

Guy Atchinson finishes up his second round

Bob Roberts Interview on BME

Nate — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:30:19 +0000

I went down to the Bob Roberts solo show at Canvas LA a few weeks ago and had the opportunity to see Bob’s work first hand as well as meet the guy. Although it was brief and I was admittedly a bit timid, Bob was a very nice guy and is a huge inspiration to my work.

I just came across this awesome interview with Bob Roberts where he says,

“If I want to be an artist, I can go buy brushes and I can go buy paper and make art. But, if I want to be a tattoo artist and nobody’s coming to get a tattoo from me, I’m not a tattoo artist.”

I spent a few years tormented by this very concept. No matter how bad I wanted to tattoo someone, or be a tattoo artist, it was never going to happen without my friends giving me the chance. Now that I’m taking the next big step in my career as a tattooer it seems fitting to give credit where credit is due: I never could have done this without you guys. Thank you.

Tattoos at Hot Dawgs and Hand Rails 2009

Nate — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:53:18 +0000

I made it up to Hot Dawgs and Hand Rails at Big Bear Mountain this passed weekend. The contest was fairly interesting, but I lost interest in watching other people snowboard after about an hour. Instead, I drank a lot of beer and took pictures of everyone’s tattoos. I apologize that I don’t remember everyone’s names or the artists who worked on the pieces names. Thanks to my good friend Danny Thomas for bringing me up, and the Arbor Snowboard crew for the hospitality. You can find the tattoo photos here.

Tree of life, from Earth to Heaven

Nate — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:00:27 +0000

I normally don’t do this, but I am too excited not to share. I drew this freehand with sharpee on Michelle’s back. I had to move the bottom of the tree trunk to better fit her back and with a little hand sanitizer I was able to take off the original sketch and redraw it. Four and a half hours later, and this the rough outline for what’s to come.

Downtime

Nate — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:31:28 +0000

August is slow. No way around it. Everyone is on vacation for the end of summer. It’s hot as hell and staying out of water for a few weeks is almost unthinkable. Luckily I have half of September booked already.

So I’ve made the best of this bit of downtime to work on some new paintings, new projects, and finishing up a few old ones. Here’s a preview of one of the new paintings I’ve been working on.

Tattooing Pete

Nate — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:32:55 +0000

Here are a few pictures from my studio when I was tattooing Pete Malinger the other day. Courtney was nice enough to take a few. She is pretty amazing isn’t she? Just so happens to be the same Courtney that has John Lennon living on her arm. Pete is an amazing musician and you’ll all need to pick up his album as soon as it’s finished!

Shark Week Tattoo Tribute

Nate — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:31:39 +0000

Here’s a shark from Michael’s ocean sleeve. The shark is a few weeks old and is still healing a little which is why it looks so rough. The blood and teeth were done today, and gave the shark this awesome look! Fortunately for Michael I learned while watching Shark Week today that sharks attack the scent of blood. So I made sure to clean him off, wrap him up, and send him home to sleep.