natan alexander

All posts tagged natan alexander

First Session: Ganesh & Tribal Coverup

Posted by Cassandra on November 30, 2012
Posted in: In Progress Tattoos. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

natan ganesh1

natan ganesh2

What was initially thought to be just the first session of a Ganesh forearm piece, turned into a solid seven hour session that included a coverup. See that Ganesh Yantra there? Before yesterday, there was some old tribal in its place. It was a long day, but both client and artist walked away happy. Thanks, Michael!

Natan has a couple of smaller openings available in December, both at Witch City Ink and Lightwave Tattoo. If you have an existing piece that you want to work on for a couple of hours, or want to get something small done, give the keeper of his schedule a call at 978.744.9393.

In-Progress Dragons

Posted by Cassandra on October 23, 2012
Posted in: In Progress Tattoos, Japanese. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

One look at Natan’s portfolio, and it’s obvious that he is heavily and humbly influenced by Asian (particularly Japanese) culture. One of his favorite subjects to tattoo? Dragons, of course. Here are some fun little tidbits from Wikipedia:

Japanese dragons (日本の竜 Nihon no ryū) are diverse legendary creatures in Japanese truth and folklore. The style of the dragon was heavily influenced by the Chinese dragon. Like these other Asian dragons, most Japanese ones are water deities associated with rainfall and bodies of water, and are typically depicted as large, wingless, serpentine creatures with clawed feet.

Historically, the dragon was the symbol of the Emperor of China. In the Zhou Dynasty, the 5-clawed dragon was assigned to the Son of Heaven, the 4-clawed dragon to the nobles, and the 3-clawed dragon to the ministers. In the Qin Dynasty, the 5-clawed dragon was assigned to represent the Emperor while the 4-clawed and 3-clawed dragons were assigned to the commoners.

Fascinating stuff! The above photo, as well as the one below, are in-progress pieces that Natan has worked on recently. He’ll also be spending some time in Japan at the end of the year and going into January. Envious? We are too.

Flowers & Waves

Posted by Cassandra on October 17, 2012
Posted in: Tattoos. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Happy Wednesday! We have a lot of recent works from Natan to show you, and we thought we’d start off with a nice little sleeve post of the flower persuasion. First up is a black and grey lily sleeve on Jodie, who quickly became one of our favorite clients.

This next pic only shows a portion of this sleeve, which also consists of flowers, but is done quite differently than the above lilies. The colors are incredibly vivid — more so than this photo shows!

Moving away from the floral spectrum, one of Natan’s clients came in with the idea of wanting waves on his forearms. He was pretty excited about these — and so were we!

As usual, Natan’s schedule is filling up incredibly fast, so be sure to give Witch City Ink a call at 978.744.9393 if you’d like to make an appointment with him (even if you want to be tattooed by him at Lightwave — the keepers of his schedule are at Witch City!). As always, keep checking back here for more tattoo photos, travel news, and a little announcement about a customer appreciation party/art show at Lightwave!

Event: Sacred Ink, The Art and Ritual of Tattooing

Posted by natanalexander on May 4, 2012
Posted in: Travels. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

On July 21st, two very special events will be occurring at CoSM. The first is The Visionary Tattoo: Empowerment, Healing, & Transformation through Body Art, with Guy Aitchison and Michele Wortman. Starting with a historical summary of visionary tattoo traditions of the past, Michele and Guy bring the focus of the discussion into what is possible now with the cutting edge understanding of the art form available today, showing examples from some of the tattoo community’s most innovative members.

Second, which I am grateful to announce that I will be a part of, is Sacred Ink: The Art and Ritual of Tattooing, hosted by Alex and Allyson Grey and includes art talks, live painting, and music from 8pm-2am. Sacred Ink features Guy Aitchison, Michele Wortman, James Kern, and myself.

You can find more information and register for both events here, or if you’d prefer to only attend Sacred Ink, click here

To learn more about CoSM and get directions to the event, visit http://cosm.org.

In Progress: Raven & Lunar Cycle

Posted by natanalexander on April 30, 2012
Posted in: In Progress Tattoos, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Sunday was no day of rest, but sometimes going in to work for the purpose of tattooing a friend is worth cutting a weekend in half for. This is the result of the second session of a back piece on Sarah, who is another client who traveled a considerable distance to be tattooed, and who also has a job to be envied (hint: it involves Alex Grey) along with plenty of interesting stories. She’s an all around cool lady, and it is always a treat to have her at Witch City Ink.

New Work: Scarab

Posted by natanalexander on April 27, 2012
Posted in: Tattoos. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Scarabs were popular amulets in ancient Egypt. According to ancient Egyptian myths, the sun (Ra) rolls across the sky each day and transforms bodies and souls. Modeled upon the Scarabaeidae family dung beetle, which rolls dung into a ball for the purposes of eating and laying eggs that are later transformed into larva, the scarab was seen as an earthly symbol of this heavenly cycle.

And so this client traveled a fair amount of distance to have this scarab on his ribs, which was done at Lightwave yesterday. A transformation symbolizing transformation.

The Beginning of the Apocalypse

Posted by natanalexander on April 23, 2012
Posted in: In Progress Tattoos. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Regardless of what you may believe, parts of the bible are incredibly fascinating, including the four horsemen, which are described in the last book of the New Testament (thanks, Wikipedia!). Wiki goes on to say:

The chapter tells of a “‘book’/’scroll’ in God’s right hand that is sealed with seven seals”. The Lamb of God/Lion of Judah (Jesus Christ) opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons forth four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses. Although some interpretations differ, the four riders are commonly seen as symbolizing Conquest, War, Famine and Death, respectively. The Christian apocalyptic vision is that the four horsemen are to set a divine apocalypse upon the world as harbingers of the Last Judgment.

Pretty cool/frightening, eh? We’ll keep showing you the progression of this tattoo. Here’s phase one!