Just one customer for me today, Dean got some more of his two koi sleeve done. We are working on the background, he likes a quite dark and dramatic look, so that’s what we’re doing. The koi and the flowers will be in colour, making them stand out nicely
sunny southside and Tribe 1 for me, working with Rob, George and Tiddy. Rob was in a good mood because he’s going to see John Cleese tonight, as he was getting ready to leave I watched him do up his cuffs and smiling to himself in the mirror… life’s good 😀
Heidi was my first customer, she was after a 4 elements 1/2 sleeve, and she liked the Japanese type of artwork, just my thing in other words! In fact all my pieces today were large Japanese style tattoos, and I’m slowly specialising more and more in this style, and loving it.
My blogs used to be more interesting to read when i had lots of different styles on the go, now it’s all ‘continuation of koi sleeve’ etc, but I’m afraid that’s not only going to stay like that, it’s going to get less and less varied as I travel down the Japanese path.
so, Heidi liked the idea of a volcano for the fire, wind and cherry blossoms fluttering by for the element of air, water as in a river, and some rocks and a couple of trees for the earth. We’ve also got the section on the underside of the arm to complete with more water and earthy landscape.
what I did today is still fairly basic, I will add detail and finish shading as we go along, plus the water will have some blues and the lava some reds
Erik got the last of his dragon piece done, some of the clouds needed finishing off.
His idea was to have a light and airy feel to his piece, so i had to hold back with the heavy shading that I’m used to doing! I like the blues in this piece, he wanted blue as it’s the colour of his baby daughter’s birth stone. We did the flames in blue, too, ha!
then another piece got finished off (for now, a dragon extension over the shoulder is planned next), David’s koi cover-up 3/4 sleeve
should have taken a video of this one! well, he’ll be back
Glasgow today, working with Mark, Tim, Simon, Raffi and Bru, the italian girls were at a tattoo convention in Ireland over the weekend, so we had photos to inspect 😀
Drew was in to get more of his tiger sleeve done, we had hoped to finish it today, but under estimated how long we’d need and ended up not getting the teal put in the water as we had hoped.
I’ve taken the usual (bad) photos, but also decided to do an animal experiment, the animal being the tiger of course, not Drew….
I took a video of the sleeve so that i can actually show you all the way round for a change.
tell me what you think!
next up was a fixer-upper, two other artists had been working on a japanese 1/2 sleeve and it just didn’t work. The finish on top of the arm was poor as was the quality of the shading, apart from the slightly cobbled together design.
Some things we can’t change, but we could add to the top and fix up the shading where possible. basically this piece is getting pretty much redone, now that we’ve fixed the shading, the colours look weak, so he’ll be in for that next time
BEFORE
BEFORE
after one sitting
no blog for saturday, as I didn’t do any work! I went through to Glasgow with Roz and Alex as usual, expecting to do a day’s work, but my customer never showed up. He’d phoned to say he might be a bit late, but in fact didn’t come in at all, it’s a bit odd. I hope he’s ok. I hung around for a couple of hours waiting for him, but his phone went straight to voicemail and i got the impression I’d been stood up…
By that time I was quite enjoying having time off, even the less than glamorous (and never ending) cleaning that needs done in a tattoo studio seemed kind of fun- and i got to hang about at the desk talking rubbish with the others for a change 😀
We had the new girl Maggie in on reception for half the day, she’s learning the ropes and will be standing in for mark when he needs time off. here she is with Alex and Roz, doesn’t she look well at home behind the counter?
Onto today, I was in Tribe 3 with Erik, Alex and Laura, and my customer for the day, Lisa.
Lisa is getting a large traditional dragon on her leg, we got the dragon done today but the background of clouds will have to wait til next time
just one tattoo today, my first one cancelled on me last minute… Roz had a few cancellations, too, may be the great weather we’re having 😆
But Gary came to the studio to get his angel tattoo, which included a micro portrait of his wife. Well, as good as you can get a portrait of only and inch in hight, but the general features were based on the wife. We will add clouds next time to bring tie the angel in with the existing pieces
no blog for yesterday, as I was off… both my customers had to cancel, not a problem as they let me know last week, but as they both weren’t happening, I decided to have the day off instead 😀
so wednesday was the old weegie day, and Sam got his ‘unsacred’ heart pretty much finished, needs some more yellow in the flame and I’ll be checking for any bits that need touching up next time. Scar tissue can be a bit unpredictable so i like to see it healed
then Paul was in, we are finally starting to bring the portrait piece together, after just adding the various portraits we are now pulling the whole thing together with some background framing.
Not done here yet, but it’s taking shape
I also had Scott in to let me have a look at his backpiece, and i think I’d like just one more hour to extend the top left hand corner a bit to match the other side more
morag sangster 