Hearts Abound

Every year around this time, at least for the past ten years or so, I get the itch.  The tattoo itch.  I take out my sketchbook, and doodle.  I have tried and tried to come up with a clever design that included hearts.  I am a Valentine Baby.  Surely that deserves a really interesting tattoo, right?  Sure.  I just can't seem to come up with anything clever or anything that would warrant inking my body permanently.  I get angry at myself, too.  Surely I can come up with something, after all;  this is my day.  I've seen  clever Valen-birthday... birthentine's Day ideas in the lovely cards I receive... and have kept.  I feel as if I've failed myself.  I even drew up some candy "Conversation Hearts" with all of my families' initials.  Yeah, yeah. 

I have not been feeling well lately, and decided to just lay around.  I started thinking about hearts again.  I was determined this time to come up with something, or at the very least, an idea to tweak.  I began sketching large hearts.  I tried joining them.  Then I tried sketching some with a border... hmm... I kept going.  I liked what I saw.  Then, it hit me:  Chain them together.  Yeah!  So I started over.  It was easier than I thought.  Before I knew it, I had sketched out a really neat design.  I thought about "Zentangling" it;  including lines and shapes within the inner part of the hearts.  I chose not to, but decided to color each heart.  It was nice.  Still it lacked something.  Shading.  I began with the darks, shading the areas 'under' the 'overpasses.'  Happy with that, I then added the highlights.  It was done.  Looking at it now, I still may Zentangle it.  If anything, this has inspired me to create my tattoo idea using this design, only using 4 hearts instead of the 8 I drew here:

I was not going for perfection.  I was going for whimsy and I think I caught that.  I'm pleased. 

Until next time,

Doodle on!