I’m working at our Corvallis shop for the duration of our back to school sale. I love being around these kids.
It’s especially nice, after the difficulties and the hard road lately.
(Our sale continues to the end of the month, so if you want to get a piece of that action now’s the time.)
Jazzy’s backpiece, finally complete. This was a collaboration done by me and Splat.
SO. MUCH. FUN.
The angler fish at the base are a bit washed out in this image. But you can get a good idea of the overall scope of the piece.
Collaboration is enjoyable like no other way of working. It’s motiavting to have someone to hang out with while working. It’s great to be able to ask someone what shade of brown they think you should use (even if you don’t follow their advice!) It’s great to have another set of eyes right there, and you can play off the other artist’s strengths and weaknesses, which makes each piece much better I think, in the end.
I am glad I work with people with whom collaborating is fun and challenging and helpful. Teamwork at the shop is such a valuable thing, maybe the best thing about a place.
Being helpful friends to co-artists is a good feeling.
Lot sof people have that weird godsmack sun on them someplace. Many of them got it when they were young and foolish, thinking it was cool looking. I have covered up more of these things than names, which is saying I have covered up a TON of them. This is a coverup of one, on my friend Jo’s leg. Dahlias are pretty.
Jo has a lot of tomboy and dark and scary tattoos, this is one of the first girly-swirlies she’s gotten; I do a lot of dark twisted stuff but once in a while it’s very nice to come up for air and just make something damn pretty for somebody.
The leaves aren’t finished yet.
Flowers are pretty fun to draw and tattoo.
I did a fun mustache joke tattoo on my friend Fedora last year, and she’s got a few shots of it up on her page. Since it’s in a … an intimate area? I’ll just let you click on her name and scroll down to find it.
She has been making underwear that match her mustache tattoo, too, which I think is great! I got a complimentary pair but if you think the cunnilingus mustache is great, you should definitely pick up a shirt or some undies from her page.
The red bull, from the movie The Last Unicorn.
Maybe it’s when I was born, my age. I was 9 when this movie hit the theaters. I was just the right age to be obsessed with horses, unicorns, and other ridable creatures. This movie, Dark Crystal, Legend, Labrynth. They all informed my childhood and warped my adult sensibilities.
Consider the story in this movie. A unicorn, the last one on land. She’s alone, magical, lives alone and pleased with her life in the forest. She does her magic and the forest survives, she has this very important work to do. Then, she starts to realize she’s alone. So she hunts for other unicorns but they’re all gone. She is turned into a human, and a prince falls in love with her. A giant red bull tries to chase her into the ocean.
Instead of the prince killing the bull and saving her and them getting married and all that typical shit, instead… SHE kills the bull, turns back into her REAL self, and goes off back to her WORK and lives her life free from entanglements, and happy that she’s no longer the only unicorn left around.
I like this storyline much better. So anyway it’s one of my favorite movies, still. And getting to do a sleeve based on it is already so much fun, even just after one sitting. I can’t wait for the next section!
two workers, one rock
her first tattoo, and she sat still and did great!
I love collaborations. I spent one whole day last week working solely on collabs with splat. We worked some more on the tree/phoenix backpiece we started a while back, and also began working on a peacock/lily half sleeve.
It’s hard to sit for two artists at once and both of these women were great, strong people. I’ve had collaborative work done on me and it’s no picnic. I’m always hoping that the people who come in and sit so well for me and my co-workers know that they should be really proud of themselves because it’s very hard to do that, and they do it with such aplomb.
It makes you feel good about yourself to be able to handle something like this; I know for me, sitting for two artists at once gave me a whole new idea about how strong I could be and made me a lot less afraid of physical pain than I had been before.
Kudos to the collab clients, you guys are the best. A few more pictures after the jump.
I’ve worked a few opening shifts in my time, not for the last few years but I’ve done it before. The first few hours at the tattoo shop are pretty quiet, usually. It’s always only that slow trickle, starting out with people who have early appointments, a few random guys trying to sell something, maybe someone coming in to look at the books.
It’s nothing like closing shifts at the tattoo shop. I prefer the night crowd. People in packs, flipping through the flash racks. Some guy showing me a pile of scribbles he got in his cousin’s basement and asking to get it fixed. A couple arguing while they ask about getting their names tattooed on each other. People rambling, weirdos coming in and asking to use the phone, and always the last minute rush of people right before closing time asking to get party dots, tiny tattoos, something that “will only take a minute”.
"I'm here with Bob, but I love my wife"
burning it at both ends
What a great weekend! Lots of awesome art, prank wars getting started, screwdrivers and paintings. I had a wonderful time, and I also had one of the best valentine’s days ever. The Vancouver show is really fun. I’ve worked it a bunch of years in a row now. Felicia is super sweet and she’s in charge, and Scott does the announcing and contests.
,This year they had a pirate theme, personally I think that should be the theme every damn year, since the hotel is pretty much built for it. The hotel bar has the shittiest music loud ever, every damn night, the worst service, the weakest drinks…but the whole thing is built to look like you are drinking on the deck of a tall pirate ship…so who fuckin cares??? Plus there’s a slew of great artists every year.
Vancouver itself is a gritty little industrial ghost town. I took some time to wander it this year and discovered a wealth of weird industry and strange buildings, pawn shops selling giant 1930’s machine guns (sadly, non functional) and a few odd spots around town. It’s not exactly a haven of beauty but it is a weird little town and fully deserving of the few hours it took me to roam and take some pictures.
It’s the unofficial tradition that everyone goes to the crab shack on sunday after the show ends, and has a bucket of crabs and some beers. This alone make sthe show worth going to, since the raucous atmosphere of a cheeseball crab restaurant after hours cannot be explained- especially when you roll in to a crowd of starving tattooing artists all sitting around fucking with each other. The service in that place, by the way, is excellent.
more after the jump
I will be working at our corvallis studio on saturday. If you come in to get tattooed, I will donate 20% of the cost of your tattoo to the animals! So if you’ve been putting off your tattoo, waiting for a good time, saturday at corvallis is IT.
Be brave and help the animals!
(in other words, if you get tattooed by me on saturday, 20% of what you paid me gets donated to the save the pets charity. It’s not a discount, it’s a donation.)
100 points if you can name the movie the quote comes from
what I did last night:
getting ready for the art opening. as you can see this one is humongous.
also, did this tattoo tonight, it’s still going to have some background, but we’ll be adding that later:
she sat like a champ. It’s funny but halfway through this tattoo another woman came in to schedule an appointment to get a book done.
English majors and future librarians are somoe of my favorite people.
link of the day:
Here’s a big shocker: poor people go to the doctor less often and catch cancer more than rich people do. DUH.
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