This past weekend, the Cabarrus Arena and Events Center hosted this year's InkFest Live. InkFest Live is designed to showcase the newest trends in tattooing, fashion and music. This weekend's expo featured more than 60 tattoo artists from across the country, live musical performances and tattoo competitions.

• DANIELLE BRODIE
• Calvin Youngblood watches on as Flaco Garcia, Hard Know Tattoos from Bronx, NY, creates tattoos his calf.

While there is a lot to see and do at InkFest Live, by far the most important part is that tattoo artists get the opportunity to show off what they do: create art.

• DANIELLE BRODIE
• Tattoo artist Grant Loveless, Now Or Never Tattoo from Conyers, GA, shows off some of his ink.

Like most other art forms, there are some basic steps the tattoo artists follow to creating their tattoos. Start with an idea, draw it up, and get to work on their human canvases. However, it is what each artist does differently at InkFest Live that makes their tattoos stand out in this crowd.

Take Don Osborne, owner and tattoo artist of Sparkle City Tattoos in Spartanburg, S.C., for example. Osborne likes to take a sharpie and sketch out a rough draft right onto his human canvas, then he lets his own creativity flow through the needles. He has been tattooing since 1993, and it's with that experience he creates his beautiful tattoos. Pictured below, he works on a large back piece on Janet Smith - the work was entered into the competition at the end of the day for the best tattoo.

• DANIELLE BRODIE
• Don Osborne, Sparkle City Tattoos from Spartanburg, SC, works on Janet Smith's full back piece to cover up scars she was left with after a car accident. Osborne has been working for over five hours and still has a few more to go.

Tattoo artists are just that - artists. They take creative ideas and turn them into permanent statements of art. Their canvases just happen to be living and breathing human beings.

• DANIELLE BRODIE
• Sherman Patrice, Harlem Hype Tattoo from New York, NY, is turning James Sheedy vision to life.

• DANIELLE BRODIE
• JT, owner and artist for House of Ink Tattoo from Monroe, NC, works on cowboy portrait on Shelby Rummage's calf.