First lesson: observation.
Dave's brother-in-law came in to get a chest tattoo of his wife's name along with a rose, some leaves, a diamond, and brass knuckles surrounding the name.

It was so intriguing just watching Dave outlining the whole tattoo design. It seems as though you would do the same techniques inking on paper except that your less dominant hand is going to be stretching out the skin in the area you are working with, just so there isn't any buckling with your canvas.
It reminded me of painting with a pen.

I did ask him if I was going to be working on some dead pigs or fruits to start practicing my tattooing skills.
He said with all of his apprentices he has taught, he put them directly on a client when he knew they were ready enough.
So I guess my first tattoo will be on human flesh ._. I just hope I don't fuck up the first time heheh.
But I guess it's not all that bad, I mean all you are doing is going over a stencil piece by strokes. So stenciling I can see is the main concern for any client. Just getting the idea down right and putting the stencil aligned on their body the right way.

Other than that I felt right at home. The place was rad, the music was rad, the employees there were rad. Just everything was rad. This is way better than I how I dreamed it would be.
I can't wait to learn more tomorrow.