Great Experiances

So, on Friday I had no school, and I went down to the shop where my mentor works and I was able to spend a good chunk of the day with her.
       She is a beautiful individual, inside and out.  I was really nervous about meeting her, but I felt so comfortable talking with her.  She is wonderful.
       I was able to watch and learn a lot of things in the amount of time I was there.  I was able to watch some touch-ups get done on a client she had recently tattooed, and I got to watch her finish the outline of a butterfly tattoo on another client's leg.  While she was setting up for the tattoos, she explained to me what she was doing, she explained the parts of the tattoo machine and showed me the needles and where they go in the gun, and how different needles are used for different things.  She explained about being sanitary, and showed me how much they need to clean things. They clean a lot in tattoo shops. 
       She showed me how the stencils are made, and how they are applied to the clients body. She even let me put on a glove and hold the tattoo gun and step on the pedal and make it work.  She showed me how deep the needles go into the skin, and how you have to adjust it for different people's skin.
       She looked at some of my artwork, and I got to see a lot of hers. She showed me some tattoos she was working on for different clients. She talked a little bit about how her apprenticeship worked out, but not a whole lot. 
       We talked about the tattoo that I'm going to be getting, and I'm going back to the shop probably in the next week for a consult, and then the tattoo is going to be done sometime in December.  I'm super excited because it's going to be done before this project is over, so I can incorporate it into my project, and my mentor is willing to tattoo it for me. 
       The whole day was just a really, really great experience.  I knew before I went to the shop that I wanted to be a Tattoo Artist, but now I am even more positive.  I'm still not exactly sure about how getting an apprenticeship works, but I'm hoping I'll be able to talk to my mentor a little bit more about how that will work, or how I'll even go about finding someone who is willing to apprentice me.  I feel like becoming a Tattoo Artist is sort of difficult, because there is no school you can go to.  You have to find a real, licensed artist who thinks you are talented enough and is willing to take time out of their lives to teach you.  I feel like that's really difficult, but I feel like I can do it.