2-17th february, milan visit

I had a week off – my old friend helen (from Skullduggery tattoo in belfast) and i went to Milan! We took in a day at the Milan tattoo convention, did some sightseeing and ate some great food, wonderful!

I managed to get a photo of the amazing white marble cathedral in Milan, with the sunset lighting parts of it up in orangy pink..I’m quite proud of this 🙂

The convention was mad busy, crammed in fact, take a look at these photos, some bits you just couldn’t get into and enjoy looking at the portfolios.

There were some amazing artists working at it, so I’m not surprised it was so packed. I liked some of the japanese artists, who were doing the traditional shading by hand called tabori. Shame i couldn’t get close enough to have a good look.

I was intrigued to see what NEO looked like, last I heard he was doing the whole KISS type of thing, only appearing with a darth vader mask on. i take it that got a bit cumbersome, and he is in fact a skinny guy from switzerland who happens to be an awesome artist http://www.neoloves.me/

here there is a collaboration going on

while this guy seems to be getting half a body suit in one sitting!

helen and I also found time to check out the Prada Foundation with it’s golden building and contemporary art collection

and did some shopping . here is Helen taking a closer look at some black tomatoes,

while i found some real shit

We stayed with an artist couple who were fabulous! they come from a graffiti background and have since hit the galleries and mainstream art world.   http://www.microbo.com/

they live and work in a tunnel, an amazing space to be in- I really enjoyed my time with them

There is a pretty strange church in Milan, with an ossuary- a chapel decorated in human bones. Of course helen and i had to check it out, very strange place indeed.

I’m not from a religious family, so I find religious art endlessly fascinating, specially all the mad catholic things. Example from the cathedral in Milan- here is a marble statue of a man wearing his own skin draped around him.

there was also more than one mummified body dressed in clothes on display, check this one out (shoes!)

Anyway, It’s not all holidays in the sun (sort of, pretty cold in Milan) I did do some tattooing in the past couple of weeks, too…

Patrick is a brewer (beer brewing! one of my favourite subjects!) and wanted a hops and barley tattoo, something to go with his existing tattoo. He has a black and grey piece done on his spine, so I brought the new piece up and over the shoulder, and kept it in the soft grey shaded look.

Paul is getting some colour in his magpies, and we made a start on joining it up with the existing piece on his back. it’s going to be colourful and arty/ illustrative

Katie is working on a half sleeve, with elements of her own designs and colour choices. It’s bright and colourful with an art nouveau feel to it

And last but not least some ivy on karen. There are some runes hidden in some of the leaves, we will let it settle and see if they are too well hidden or just right. karen will be back to finish this piece off, so we can have another look then

 

22-27th january

plenty of flower tattoos in this blog, and starting things off is Alex’s pink peony with a chicadee in a teacup. A chickadee is a small bird from her native USA, cute wee things that fluff themselves up into little pom poms (the things i learn on this job!)

alex is working on a sleeve of pretty and cute things, we’ve already done a variety of flowers and wild plants, rabbits and other little creatures. Another rabbit next time!

Mark’s chrysanthemum is taking shape

No flowers for maxine, but a space tiger! this is from a dream she had, where there was a space tiger climbing into space, he had big paws and a simple space helmet. All done in a japanese sort of way- and why not! dreams can give the best kinds of inspiration.

we will finish this piece when i’m down in manchester working at the convention, less travelling for maxine

Pedro is working on a tree sleeve, it incorporates all kinds of flowers native to places he has lived in and loved. Today we added a beetle, which is similar in shape to the black and grey beetle his girlfriend has tattooed on her, a cute reference to her without having the same piece.

Back to the flowers! Aileen got a couple of foxgloves added to her meadow

Stevie got some purple and muted greens added to his peony

And Josh got a few small white flowers done to his leaves, carved wood and berries. This is a more moody piece, I will explain more about it next time when I’ll take pictures of the whole arm. we still have some shading and detailling to do

Joshua arrived bang on time for his appointment at 10am, having traveled across the country in what was a major storm. I wasn’t expecting him to be so punctual and congratulated him on his achievement, he just said ‘a wizard is never late. Or early’ Brilliant 🙂

Alex is working on an epic stag piece, i love his bold decision to bring the antlers over his chest and back

Richard got a light and airy Buddha piece, with clouds and pagodas in the background. he says he 2 year old niece kisses the buddha on the cheek and strokes him. How cute is that?

paul is getting two magpies to celebrate his relationship with his fiance. the birds represent the two of them, and the ring their union. The little twig that one of the birds is holding is for the nest they are building for their family.

paul wasn’t after a smooth rendering of his piece, more an illustrative, sketchy and water colour sort of effect. we got the basic line work and black shading done,the colours will be interesting, with splashes of purple and green