Yep, I’ve got some new tattoos to show off.

Click to see larger version
Click to enlarge *photo by Rez Graham
click me
click me

My latest tattoo is of Ganesh, the Hindu God of success, lord of beginnings and the remover of obstacles. Ganesh is to be honored first before the other Gods and Goddesses, so I felt it was appropriate to sacrifice my flesh to him first before my planned tattoos of other Hindu dieties.

It took 2 sessions, roughly 5 hours total to get this finished. Doug Fortin at One Shot Tattoo did a great job. He took my original artwork (on the right) and added his magic touch.

click meclick me

I also had some more work done to this piece with the Lion Capital of Emperor Ashoka (which is over 2300 years old and is the national emblem of India). I went back to One Shot Tattoo back in September and met the owner Dave Bobrick. Though the original artist I worked with no longer works at the shop, Dave offered to take over and he colored in the design in orange, yellow and red as per the artwork I brought in a year earlier when I first got this piece. Dave is a fantastic artist, runs an excellent shop and pleasure to speak with. The colors are very subtle, and often seem to change dramatically depending on lighting conditions.

What does the title of this post mean?

“Desi” (sounds kinda like “they see”) in several Indian languages refers to people or things from India. It can roughly be translated also as “native”.