247 Ink Magazine (December/January) 2016 Issue#12 | Page 221

medium. I love working with charcoal, working with watercolor, any medium, sculpting, art is art and if it helps me be a better tattoo artist I need to make the time to do that. You jumped ahead of my next question which was do you paint at all? (laughs) I paint, my tattooing didn’t evolve until I took my classic watercolor class where I was only allowed to use 8 colors and was not allowed to use black and white. I got to make every color including black by mixing colors, so you learn to become a better artist by using other mediums. Let’s look at Nikko Hurtado. Nikko was a painter before he was a tattooer and it shows in his work. So, what do you do in your spare time? I’m an avid animal lover. I have 3 dogs, 2 parrots, a snake, a bearded dragon lizard, ish and I’m love firearms. I’m an outdoorsy kind of person. I’m actually go to glock shooting and camping and love being out in nature. I love fishing. You can’t live on the beach and not love fishing. Fishing is like therapy. There’s nothing like being out on the water. There’s something about the peace and quiet and focusing on the task of tricking this fish to bite on an artificial lure..it helps me mentally. Any projects you’re working on? No projects, but a couple of tattoo ideas I’ve never seen that I think will make people go “Holy Shit!” Something different, but I can’t tell you that idea (laughs) I’ve researched it and have not seen anything like it. I think I have a original idea. 219