New model. Same as day 1. Jeff spent the first half of the day painting and demonstrating and we spent the second half of the day painting.
Here is some of what Jeff showed us on Tuesday.
Jeff Hein Workshop day 1
•August 31, 2015 • Leave a CommentI apologize for the lapse in posting. My computer at home has decided that uploading is something it is only doing on a part time basis. We are in negotiations to see if we can sort this discrepancy out between the two of us. Otherwise, I may need to look for another computer. I am hoping not. This one is not that old. <sigh>
Anyhow, here are the photos from the first day of the Jeff Hein workshop. I’ve decided to only post Jeff’s work and not mine or the other students in the class. While I learned a lot – I am not happy with the actual paintings that I made during the workshop. I know some of the other students felt the same way. So rather than posting anyone else’s work without permission – we are going to stick with documenting the teacher in action.
Jeff Hein Portrait Demo
•July 20, 2015 • Leave a CommentLast night Jeff did a (free!) three hour painting demonstration at the Hungerford Building. I’m taking his workshop this week and was fortunate enough to be able to attend last night as well.
Hopefully I will do better with photographing the rest of the week. I had no idea how bad it comes out when you try to zoom in with the phone!
slightly better photos I took the next day:
Perry Chalk Art Festival 2015
•July 12, 2015 • 2 CommentsI had been invited to apply as a participating artist in the Perry Chalk Art Festival a little while ago. I had to submit information about myself and what I intended to create should I be selected.
It turned out that the date for the event was a weekend I had taken off of work for another event which actually wound up happening the week before. I didn’t know until Thursday that I had actually been selected to participate. Fortunately I had drawn some rough sketches up anyhow and it didn’t take long to have something drawn enough to work off of.
I had decided that I wanted to involve the Silver Lake Serpent (which is on the Town Seal) in my image. If you aren’t familiar with the Silver Lake Serpent I would suggest looking into it or see if we can talk Chris Clemens over at Exploring Upstate into doing a story on it (if he hasn’t already).
Registration started at 8am in the morning. Which means that I needed to be up before I would normally like to be. I did manage to make it out to Perry on time without injuring myself or anyone else in the process.
Registration was quick and painless. They gave me a little bag with a set of pastels, a washcloth and some nitrile gloves. 
I found my square and found out that I was sponsored by the Silver Lake Marine. 
Perfect! I’m sure they wouldn’t mind a Silver Lake Serpent themed drawing. 🙂 (If you would like to check them out they are online at Silver Lake Marine.) I then realized that I had given no thought to how to make my sketch the size of the square. When I am painting I can stand back and just eyeball it – but this was too big and I had to work at too much of an angle.
I looked around and the other chalkers were using chalk lines and grids and the guy next to me had brought a giant stencil with him. I started to panic and think that I had really gotten in over my head.
Then I heard Paul in my head making fun of me. This is chalk. This will wash off. I tattoo people for a living. They aren’t going to yell at me if my chalk drawing isn’t perfect. This is supposed to be fun. Lighten up TeeJay!
So I went for it. I put a couple of side marks to figure out roughly fourths of the size of the image so I would have some gauge if I was way off and just started chalking.
I would have continued to noodle for a really long time, but Meghan came by and said that we had about a half an hour left to work on them. I decided to call it finished. “Signed” it and went to see what else had been created. 
I have to tell you that the Town of Perry or the Chalk Art Festival Committee or whoever it is that is actually behind the scenes on this does an AMAZING job. I have been to tattoo conventions that I have paid hundreds of dollars to attend and never been treated this well. They came by periodically with ice cold water and had a couple of adorable kids that came by several times with cold fresh drinks and fresh fruit. Even had myself an nice cold chocolate milk. Haven’t had one of those in forever.
There was also a food thing going on. A Taste of Summer event that had a bunch of different restaurants and for one flat price (discounted for chalkers) you could sample foods from a dozen or so restaurants. I opted not to participate as I was concerned about the gluten thing. I did hear amazing feedback from the people who went.
Beyond this section that I took photos of, there were smaller squares set up along Main Street as well as many other vendors. The kids did a great job and I wish I had taken photos as many of the kids category pieces were crazy good.
There was live music that was GREAT the entire day. They started right around 8 and played all day.
If there was a down side at all it was only for me. The sun. Man, I am not used to the sun. Yes, I tan in a nanosecond, but I really don’t spend much time in the sun. I bought 85 spf sunblock in preparation. I truly believe this is the first time in my life I had to put sunscreen on the bottoms of my feet. Despite the sunscreen and the big borrowed hat I managed to sunburn one side of my face, my lips, the back of my neck and my entire back tanned (well) right through my shirt.
At the end of it all I won a special award for Most Original Fantasy and took Second Place overall for the Adult Division.
The Perry Chalk Art Festival takes places the second Saturday in July every summer with the rain date scheduled for the following week. I will mark them off on my calendar and spend some time between now and then upping my chalk game. Hope to see you there next year 🙂
It’s Friday and I’m painting stuff
•June 26, 2015 • 2 CommentsOr more precisely I was painting stuff. I’m finished for the night now. I will be painting stuff again tomorrow.
Hopefully I will have some more photos for you then.
Neither one of these are finished… still works in progress 🙂
Learning to Paint Looser
•June 25, 2015 • Leave a CommentI have another seminar coming up soon. I have watched some video footage of this guy painting. It’s loose and gestural – but also refined and controlled. He makes his paintings look like they just magically happened. The kind of paintings that are exciting to look at from 3″ away in addition to from a normal distance.
I love this.
It is also all sorts of intimidating. Obviously I have no idea how to paint like this or I wouldn’t be taking a workshop. So after seeing a little bit of this in action I decided to experiment with it myself.
These are not perfect. They are learning exercises. I have learned lots. There are things I like about each of them and things that I don’t. Some of them are more successful than others – that isn’t the point. Practicing and learning are the point. Therefore there will be more of these to come.
Tomorrow I hope to start on some full size pieces that I have laid out – but I intend to continue to make these little ones in between other projects (each of these are 5″x7″ on canvas board done with conventional oil paints).
The RedBubble Experience thus Far
•June 19, 2015 • 1 CommentI was hesitant when I started out looking for some place to carry my prints. I had found printsonwood and was very happy with their print quality and their business ethics. The link again for that is TeeJay-Prints on Wood There were a few problems with them. One, I am not high enough volume to be a featured artist on their site – so finding me on it is next to impossible for someone doing a search for my work without the direct link. Also because of my lower volume they sent me an email saying that for now they would limit the number of images I could list on the site and in the future they might have to remove me.
At this point I started looking for options. I asked around and one of the things that I found in asking around is that most people don’t care about having prints. They can love an image, but that doesn’t mean they are going to put in on their wall.
This was foreign thinking to me as my walls are COVERED in art work – but as I started to look around I realized that many of my non-artist friends had little to nothing on their walls.
Enter RedBubble. Had good reviews… the artists that I talked to were happy with how they were treated and the people who had ordered things from them had been happy as well. They offer a TON of different items including prints (but not on wood, so they aren’t a competitor of the other site).
Not having much to lose (it doesn’t cost anything to upload images to their site). I went ahead and started uploaded things and trying to figure out how the site worked. A couple days into this process (before I had very many images up) they “featured” my painting Introduction on their found page. It drove a lot of traffic to my section and was super fun to have been recognized for my art.
Once I had most of my images uploaded (there are still a few I can’t find the scans for or don’t have good files of) I ordered a few items for myself to check out the quality and the service.
I also had a couple of people tell me that they were ordering things as well. (the site tells me that I have made a sale, but gives me no indication of who the purchaser is). I asked if they could send me photos of the items that they received.
An old friend ordered one of the skirts and sent me this photo. (I want to call you Jenna, but I don’t know if that is okay anymore since we haven’t talked in person in so long… do you go by Jenna or Jennifer these days? Facebook keeps people in touch, but in weird ways.) She actually ordered two in different orders so I think that she is happy with them. This one definitely looks great on her.
The first thing that I ordered for myself was a phone skin. I overlooked the description and thought that it was one of those thin rubber-y kind of phone cases, but it is actually a movable sticker. Cool and well printed, even if not what I thought it was going to be. Not at all their fault, just me not paying attention. I really love the way it looks and like that I can swap it out with other ones if I would like.
I ordered myself a mug with the Lucerna print. Super happy with the print quality on the mug. It is underneath the glaze and is no way it is going to wear off. Might chip obviously, but looks great and I am sure will wear well. None of those weird warnings about how you can’t put it in the dishwasher or anything.
Unfortunately, as you can see it did arrive in more than one piece which is not a good thing in a mug. Even this worked out pretty well as I was able to see how their customer service is. It’s excellent. They got back to me and were very professional and polite and put through an order for a new mug before they had any verification from me that this one was really broken (I had emailled them, but had not sent them the photo in the initial contact)
I ordered Paul a couple of his favorite prints for his phone. One of these is the “tough” variety and one is the standard phone case. The printing on both is really nice and is more true to the colors of the paintings than they look like they are in my photographs.
I ordered myself a new pencil case (it’s a good thing to do every ten or twelve years anyhow). Super happy with the print quality on this as well and excited to see that it is a little bit bigger than my old one.
They sent me a voucher to buy some more things with my imprints on them (apparently a perk of having been featured in their “found” section), so I am going to splurge and buy a pillow and the stretch pants. Just have to decide which designs to pick.
If you have ordered any of the items and could send me photos and feedback I would really appreciate it.
Also would like to give a shout out to my friend Frank who has set up his own RedBubble site as well. If you order and of Franks photography on things I would also love to hear from you.
Link for Frank’s Work on RedBubble
Thank you as always for reading my ramblings. Hope that you have a great day and get to spend some time with people you love and/or doing things that make you happy.
Steve Carpenter Studio show, some tattoos, figure drawing, you know… all the things
•June 15, 2015 • 5 CommentsStarted out with some sessions on big in progress work.
Added some more color to Debbie’s octopus. I have come to realize that some of the ongoing projects have fans. A couple of people have referred to Debbie’s octopus as “one of my favorites” and I have had others ask me how the Octopus Lady is doing.
Cheer her on! This a giant project and covers some parts that are not particularly fun to have tattooed. She is doing great and is committed to seeing this project through. I am having a ton of fun and really enjoy the time I get to spend with Debbie. We may need to adopt her at the shop so that we can keep her after this one is finished.
Rob came to town for another session on his mountain unicycle knight facing off against a dragon tattoo (okay, yes, it’s a wordy description…. but come on the guy rides a unicycle… on mountains… that’s worth mentioning!)
Also this time Rob brought us some amazing gluten free cookie treats. They were from Matt’s Cookie Bars and I highly recommend that you give them a try if you are of the gluten free variety (or even if you aren’t and you just like tasty snacks).
Beyond that it bears mentioning that even though Rob got tattooed in the Greece location this visit – he still stopped by the Webster shop on the way home and brought the crew out there a plate of goodies also! We have lots of people bring us treaties – but I don’t know that anyone has ever done that. Well, except for Bonnie who makes us Christmas cookies each year for both shops. I apologize for almost forgetting you Bonnie. Please, please don’t hold it against me. We fight over getting to those cooking first every single year.
So. (insert weird little hand motion that people who spend a lot of time at the shops know). Supernatural. It’s a big deal apparently and since I live under a rock (a rock with internet) I don’t know much about Supernatural. It’s a television show and people LOVE it. Cathy is a big fan of the show (as it turns out are a lot of people! Nadia included) and asked me to make this tattoo for her. It’s not the kind of thing I would normally tattoo anymore – but I really love Cathy and her family a ton. So she gets special treatment. I do think I am going to need to get better cheater glasses if I am going to continue to do tattoos this small.
Now Cathy is safe from being possessed.
So I hear.
🙂
This happened.
Thank you Marc (aka Draco Dominum) for volunteering your person to be part of this madness 🙂 I hope that you have lots of fun with your new nipple!
I made a couple of conventional reconstructive nipples that day as well – those will be on the medical site at a later date. PointlessNipples.com
I had drawn this piece up for a project that it didn’t get used for. I really liked the piece – so I posted it on facebook asking if there was anyone who might be interested in getting it tattooed on them. Heather stepped up and said that it had an Alice in Wonderland feel that she really liked and she would be willing to have it put on her. After she arrived she told me that she has plan for an Alice in Wonderland thigh piece and wanted to know if I might be interested in making that for her. YES!! All of the yes 🙂
Some painting roughs that I am putting together so that I actually have a plan when I get to Asheville in two weeks. This time I will have stuff planned out ahead of time so I don’t choke (or spend a day repainting something I painted the day before) like I did in Hell City. Looking forward to seeing family and friends and having some more painting time.
If you are going to be in Asheville – come see Holly, Lake and me at the McMitten’s Cat Lady Shelter.
Some previews of the work that is currently hanging in the Steve Carpenter Studio. This isn’t all of them, but you can get a tease. Hours are listed in the previous post – you still have some time to get out and see this show in person.
Figure drawing had been cancelled for tonight because of the show going on…. then someone changed their mind and it was uncancelled. I had already made plans with (my friend) Natasha when I thought figure drawing was cancelled – but she was able to get together a little earlier so I was able to do both. Fortunate for me because for no reason at all she bought me this really awesome shirt. (which I think Holly had ordered less than 10 minutes after I showed it to her)
Great model tonight. I love drawing curvy humans.
Okay I have homework I should be doing – so that’s it for tonight. See y’all soon.
Some time off
•June 10, 2015 • Leave a CommentIf you are going to have periodic mental break downs especially over things like the death of a beloved pet – being a tattoo artist is a pretty awesome gig. I was able to step away from tattooing the last week and not have to deal with an obnoxious boss who doesn’t understand.
I still did some stuff. I still made some things. But I was allowed some time to grieve and come to terms with my new home situation without Mr Toby. Thank you to everyone who has reached out and everyone who has understood how this has affected me.
I have an internet friend (I have never met her in real life) who has a blog called Catriona Is Crazy. Her logo is a rabid cupcake. For not much reason at all I wanted to try my hand at what I thought a rabid cupcake would look like. Here is what I came up with.
I drew a teacup giraffe because there was one in an old TV commercial and one of my friends thought that they were awesome and wanted one. This one also made it’s way onto the RedBubble – just in case anyone else has a thing for teacup giraffes.
I finished up the painting that I started in Hell City (the one from Friday, the other one is still unfinished) and sent it off to be in the Steve Carpenter Student Exhibition. I did upload it to the RedBubble page as well for those of you who were asking about it.
I was honored that it was included on the press info for the show.
I spent some time with some wonderful friends who made me feel like everything will be okay again. As much of an introvert as I am – it’s great to have so many wonderful human beings in my life.
—–
Kent has come back to join us at White Tiger after having lived out of the area for quite a few years. Glad to have him back. Yesterday I made a tall ship tattoo for him to commemorate his “Homeward Bound” adventures. Honored to be able to make this for him. Who woulda thunk we would have wound up here all these many years later?
I hope your mom doesn’t freak out too badly 🙂
Last night we started a new tradition at the Greece shop of doing weekend critiques of our work together as a group. Danny and I have been wanting to do this for a while and I am glad we finally made time to make it an organized thing. I am hoping that all of us will grow as artists even quicker with each other’s assistance.
Today I get to work on the ongoing octopus tattoo project. Yay! She is an awesome client and I always enjoy hanging out with her during her sessions.
Hope that you have a great day and get to spend some time doing something that you love.
Tattoo Update – More Skulls than Usual
•May 31, 2015 • Leave a CommentWas asked to make this little tattoo for a very special young lady’s first tattoo. We drew this on to her specifications and she did great. I suspect it won’t be long before she is looking to get another. 
Figure drawing.
Practicing.
Nice to work in other mediums. Great to hang out with such driven and talented people. 
Another little tattoo for a wonderful young lady. A memorial/tribute piece for a Grandparent. 
Got some slightly better photos of Jean’s Heart locket tattoo healed up. 
Covered up a Memorial Tattoo that I did around 1994 with the same sentiment – just larger. The lettering was too small in the original tattoo. Plus the piece was no where big enough for the size of his arm. 
Much better now and will hold up better with sun exposure. 
Eric. Eric always comes up with fun stuff for me… and is completely understanding when I have brain lapses. Drew this the day of his appointment because I forgot what we were doing and drew the wrong thing. 
Mostly healed photos of the background on Bernie’s leg. There will be more to come to fill in the leg further and add more color to this one so his legs are more balanced. 
Rob’s second session on his Mountain Riding Unicyclist tattoo. The knight is healed here and what we got done on the dragon is all fresh. 
Matthew’s last session and last tattoo before he and his family head for their Grand Adventures points West. I wish them all the best. There are lots of great people in Seattle.
This piece is based on the work of a woman who is on Deviant Art as Zarathus and on some other media s Static Creature. I don’t know what her name is. There were so many amazing details in the original art that I just couldn’t get into a tattoo this scale. I tried to get the overall feel in there – but still tried to pack as many details as possible. The staff was an addition from a drawing that Matthew did a long time ago. (High school maybe?)
Thank you for everything and I hope the Left Coast does right by you and your family.
Another shot at a healed photo of this Samurai Skull tattoo. Perhaps I would do better if the window wasn’t behind him. duh.
Filler Skull and Cross bones tattoo. This was an impromptu choice based on a sign that Joey has in his work area. I do like doing stuff like this a lot – takes the trust of the client that those scribbles will turn out to be a nice tattoo. 
Healed photo of the Misfits (Crimson Ghost) skull. 
Started this nice little tattoo on Casey to tie in his sleeves. Obviously we have a bit to go yet on this one. 
Short session to start on Ted’s chest. More details to come and her hand will be there also. Once that is finished there will be a companion piece for the other side and a small center piece. I’m leaning towards spider – but we will see what works best.
Very excited about this half sleeve for Justin. This is his first tattoo and he sat great. Can’t wait to work on this again. This one will actually extend on to his chest panel as well. Lots of fidldly bits and little details which will be tied in with great sunset colors. Stay tuned.
Thank you to everyone for your support and understanding with me after my last post. This week has been hard interspersed with horrible. Being home is hardest without him here. I’m sorry that I haven’t responded to all of you – but it is still super emotional for me to talk about and I don’t like to be that upset in public.
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