Teneri Ruggiti

It’s been a while since I last worked on one of my cats and every time I get the chance to do one, I’m happy.

This last one, created for my cousin, was born from a request that had nothing to do with cats nor with a figurative subject.

The initial idea was in fact a neck tattoo with his and his wife’s initials.

I’m not a fan of letterings and even less of decals.

I also believe a neck tattoo is a little out of place for someone who has few tattoos and small ones.

If it must be on the neck, it should be something beautiful and important instead of a micro-tattoo destined to become something horrible after a couple of years, and it is in any case better to tattoo the neck after having covered the body extensively.

After making these and other remarks, I closed my speech with my usual: “This is what I suggest. Then, if it means so much to you, I can tattoo you the grocery list if you want”.

He agreed with me and asked me to come up with some ideas.

Since it had to be dedicated to himself and his wife, I suggested a tattoo with two contrasting elements, for example, a predator (wolf, eagle, tiger etc.) representing the male aspect and possibly a flower for the female aspect. 

As for the placement, it could be anywhere he wanted but I would have avoided the neck.

He liked the idea, and as he thought about which animal to include, he reminded me that he had always liked my cat paintings and so had his wife. From then on everything was pretty simple, I was going to draw a cat’s head in my own style surrounded by orchids (his wife’s favourite flower).

I would have preferred to do it in colour but he chose black and grey. During the creation of the design I decided to add a touch of red to the composition anyway, it was worth a try and he liked the idea.

Finally, there was nothing left to do but transpose the design on skin, which took very little time compared to my usual work. A quick, relaxing and successful tattoo.

I missed my cats 🙂

cat and orchids in black and grey tattoo by Jerry Magni Tattoo artist Italy, Milan, Bergamo, Lugano