Just TeeJay's Blog

Things Not to Say to your Tattooer

•March 27, 2015 • Leave a Comment

I’m not feeling stellar today. Perhaps this has made me crankier than I usually like to (admit to) be(ing).

There are a host of list things going around the internet written by tattooers to prove to their clients how stupid and inferior they are and how they should properly behave in tattoo studios. They want the clients to truly appreciate them and how hard their job is. These lists piss me off. I have had shitty jobs. Tattooing isn’t it. Yes, there are things about it that I don’t like – but there I things that I don’t like about having to get dressed and leaving the house every day.

This is reality. No matter how wonderful your job is, there are things about it that you aren’t going to like. Get over yourselves.

That being said there are things that you probably shouldn’t say to someone who has spent years learning how to safely tattoo you.

One of them that came up this week is Pink Eye. It is bad form to sit in my shop and go on and on and on about how everyone in your house is infected with PinkEye. Especially not a good idea to go into great detail about how disgusting it is and how they are leaving sticky slime on things in your house. Obviously you have no idea about cross contamination. You are being disgusting and we want to put you in a giant plastic bag and make sure you don’t touch anything.
In this instance this person was in the shop visiting with someone who was getting tattooed. There was no real reason for her to even be in the shop. I really wanted to wipe her down with sani-wipes and send her on her way.

So I guess that really isn’t things not to say to your tattooer. I guess it is more that you shouldn’t be a gross human and share your infections with other people in public.

—

Not too long ago I tattooed a client who wanted to tell me about the kit that they got their friend for Christmas last year to tattoo with. I tried in every single way that I could to explain to this person how dangerous that is. I tried to get the client to stop telling me about this. I don’t want to sit with your for several hours while you tell me about how much smarter you are because you are coming to me for your tattoo instead of getting tattooed by your idiot friend who really doesn’t know how to draw. The friend that only has tattoo equipment because YOU BOUGHT IT FOR THEM!

I appreciate that you trust me and that you don’t trust your friend. Please for the love of everything that is holy how can you expect me to be okay with the fact that you bought them a kit. Why would you tell me about how dumb your other friends are for letting this person practice on them WHEN YOU BOUGHT THEM THE EQUIPMENT. You helped unleash this person on to your FRIENDS. You encouraged this person to scar people up, spread disease and potentially kill your friends (or just lose a limb). No autoclave. No surface cleaner. No barriers. No disposable single use equipment. NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

Blood. We are dealing with blood. We are opening the protective layer that your body has to protect you from disease. We are leaving pigment behind. My pigment comes from a reputable US supplier that keeps everything sterile and protected. Your friend’s ink came from a foreign country that still thinks it is okay to use lead in baby toys.

What the hell is the matter with you?

On top of all of this… you want me to feel sorry for you because your ungrateful friend lost interest in the tattooing and didn’t follow up with it. I wanted to scream “Thank God!” and shake you. I didn’t. I reiterated again that it is really really dangerous to make tattoos on people at home with no concept of blood borne pathogens and third world crappy equipment.

I would like to see what the reaction would be if I started doing sutures and minor surgeries at home. Or walked into my dentist’s office and started telling them about my home dental kit.

Please do not do this. Do not buy your friends or yourselves tattoo equipment off of ebay or from Amazon. Do not experiment on your friends or yourselves.
And if you do, please have the decency to tell me BEFORE I start tattooing you so that I can throw you out of my shop then. Have enough sense to be ashamed.

—-

To the rest of you – I apologize for being angry on the internet. I try not to do this. I did try to explain this to this client repeatedly during our session. They never got it.
Perhaps if someone starts talking to you about house tattoo parties or getting tattooed in a kitchen you can talk to them and stop them.
If your friend buys you a tattoo kit. Please send it back.

If you think about letting your friend practice on you – spend some time googling “tattoo infections”, “bad tattoos” or “blood borne infections” before you follow through on that.

—-

Back to hopefully happy TeeJay.

Posted in You Can't Make This Shit Up
Tags: home tattooing kit, oblivious humans, tattoo

Nipple Volunteer Dina – Yay!

•March 26, 2015 • 1 Comment

Okay, this isn’t going to make sense to most of you and the ones that it does make sense to I don’t need to explain it.

So if this doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry about it 🙂

If you would like to know more about this kind of work – there is more on my other website Illusion of Protrusion

I am no longer doing this work at outside medical facilities, but am working on getting the book finished. These photos and the ones that we will be taking in April will go a long way towards making that happen. The April dates are on patients and will not be here.

If you have questions on anything about this process, please email me directly at teejay1@frontiernet.net

Previous photos where I tried to take pictures while I was tattooing are here Step by Step nipple tattooing

Super big thanks to Stephen Lindsay for taking these photos for me!

Posted in tattoo, TeeJay
Tags: 3d nipple illusion tattoo, 3d nipple tattoo, mastectomy tattooing, medical nipple tattooing, nipple tattooing, reconstructive areola tattooing, reconstructive nipple tattooing, tattooing nipples after cancer

Gray Spring? Find the Beauty in that

•March 21, 2015 • Leave a Comment

The vernal equinox has arrived. It was a grey cold day. I’m okay with that. Embrace the grey!

We added this little black and grey fox in between a couple of other existing (black and grey) pieces for Sarah. Always a pleasure to see her. She brought me some maple syrup that her sweetie made and so Paul and I had french toast for dinner the next night. mmmmmmmm french toast

Monday was figure drawing and I was able to go this week. We had a great model. The last time she came in while I was there Steve had set up weird underlighting – which was great study and practice – but not very flattering to the model. This time I was sad I didn’t have more time. I would have loved to have worked longer with couple of these poses.

Mike came back for a second session on his arm. We started on the lower portion this time.

Some healed shots of last session. I didn’t make the tribal portion. We are going to add around and weave into it.

Mike had seen a time lapse that I was playing around with and had posted on facebook – so he brought his GoPro with him and offered to time lapse video our session. Super excited about this! I am definitely going to be playing with timelapse more.

If that isn’t working the url is here TimeLapse

and the still photo:

Britt and I had seen a display of kitty bones laid out with the pelvic bones next to the head approximating ears. We liked the idea, but the reality makes the “ears” too large. So we used the same idea, made the ears smaller (artistic license) and added a bit of brush sage. The only thing that could have made this better is if we had gotten to tattoo it on Caturday 🙂

So go forth and find the beautiful in the grey (or black and grey) in your life. It’s out there if you just look for it.

Posted in Art, Figure Drawing, tattoo, TeeJay
Tags: black and grey tattoo, cat skull tattoo, Cerebus tattoo, cute fox tattoo, fox tattoo, Hercules Cerebus tattoo, Hercules tattoo, kitty skull tattoo, silverback tattoo ink, skull tattoo, tattoo

Dead of Winter – Drawing and Painting Slam

•March 1, 2015 • Leave a Comment

Steve Carpenter’s studio has hosted this for the last 4 years. I had seen flyers for it – but like a lot of these type of things it took place on a Saturday and I wouldn’t be able to go due to work.

A couple of days beforehand my full day appointment contacted me to let me know that he was ill and was not going to be able to make it. I hate to be excited about anyone contracting pneumonia – but in this instance it did allow me to get out of my shell and go play.

The event started at 10 and I arrived a few minutes afterwards to a room incredibly full of people already drawing and painting. There was a great spread of food available and I added my organic strawberries to the lot before finding a place to draw from. The side with the female model seemed more populated – so I stuck my head around the corner and saw that there were still spaces left on the side with the male model.

Everyone was friendly. There were people there that I recognized form Monday night figure drawing and some that I see when I take classes at Steve’s. There were obviously lots of old friends visiting and new ones getting acquainted. Even in a relatively large crowd I felt very comfortable.

I only brought my little sketch pad as I didn’t know how much room would be available.

When I got far enough with this one that I was getting worried about messing it up I decided to pack it in. I don’t like bailing on the other artists at the shop and there was still lots to do at work. Said good bye and snuck out while there was still lots going on.

I am grateful for the opportunity to create in different media in different environments. I appreciate everyone putting this together and especially Deb VanWert for encouraging me to go even though she was unable to make it.

I think next year I will try to schedule the time off to spend the whole day. Maybe I will even try to paint. I didn’t realize the models would be in the same pose for the entire time.

Posted in drawing, Figure Drawing, Sketchbook
Tags: Art, artist, artwork, Dead of Winter, Drawing and Painting Slam, figure drawing, figure study, life drawing, Steve Carpenter Studio

Second half of Holly’s Birthday week – This is Real Life

•February 8, 2015 • Leave a Comment

Holly has a collaborative sleeve that Stephen Lanphear and I have been working on for too long for any of us to remember exactly how long it has been. Part of what she wanted for her birthday this year was to have her sleeve worked on again. She had a session with Stephan at his shop Lefty’s in Pittsfield, MA on her way here. There were some little gaps left in between the main elements that had been bothering her and our goal was to fill those in this time. Idea being to put lift kitty ‘gifts’ in those areas. The biggest spot was her elbow which we settled on a mouse head for. I had done my preliminary sketches and then went looking for reference. One of the reference photos we found online included a foot, which fit the space nicely and would give more of an appearance of just a cute little mouse when viewed from the front of her arm.

Earlier in the week there was a discussion on facebook. My friend Natasha is making me a bunny hat with amazing droopy bunny ears. On the thread about the bunny ear hat Gretchen posted a link to necomimi ears – which none of the rest of us had heard of. They are ears that move based on signals from your brain. Thus in theory conveying your emotions or thoughts as movement and position of the ears. I had just assumed they would be astronomically expensive so I enjoyed the video and thought no further on it. When Holly saw the video she went immediately to the internet. She found them, decided they were reasonably enough priced and Amazon Prime could have them to us in two days. She said she would buy them for me if I would tattoo her in them. I’m still not sure how it works out that it was her birthday but I got the ears – totally don’t care. They are amazing! Not only did I wear them to tattoo her in, I wore them all day. Toby showed a complete lack of interest in my new ears as did our other cat Tora. Loki however was completely unimpressed with the ears. He spend the morning watching me from a safe distance. When I came around the corner into the kitchen where he wasn’t expecting me – he arched up his back and hopped sideways away from me to escape the room. I have never seen a cat do anything like that in person. It was AMAZING! TeeJay in ears with cat Driving in the ears wasn’t too bad. Mostly it was just tricky getting in and out of the car without bumping them. TeeJay driving with ears on First stop was Cheesy Eddie’s for some Birthday Cheesecake for Holly. She opted for the cheescake cupcakes and I was fortunate enough that they had some gluten free mini cheesecakes for Paul and I as well. TeeJay with ears in Cheesie Eddie's Next was a stop at Five Guys burgers and fries for Holly and I could each get our respective half of cheeseburgers (I don’t eat bread and she doesn’t eat meat, so they are a little confused sometimes when we are trying to order). The guy in Five Guys was genuinely excited about the ears. It was fun for me to watch his reactions and he came by the table a couple of times to make sure that our food was okay 🙂 Tattooing in the ears was fine. It was a good thing Holly was laying down for a lot of it though as she kept laughing every time she looked at me. There was much giggling in the tattoo shop on Friday. Lady bug (dead) to fill in a space. Some little bird feets for filler. After a great night of giggles and tattooing (I can some how hear my Grandma in my head using the word shenanigans.) Holly decided (being the glutton for punishment that she is) that she needed yet another tattoo before she headed home.

If you read the last post you know that we discussed a lot of options for what and where Holly should get her extra nipple tattoo. The side boob tattoo had been voted down, but in the end Holly decided that she needed that one also. How could I deny this lady anything that she wanted for her birthday?

People ask me a lot what the weirdest tattoo I have ever made is. I don’t really know the answer to that question, but I am pretty sure that it is on Holly no matter what. She now has, the first dead bird tattoo that I ever did, the spotted cockalope and now a total of three extra nipples. How can you not love this woman?!?

This tattoo is every bit as surreal in person as it is in the photos. It takes a moment for your brain to register what it is looking at and that there is something very wrong. It’s kind of disconcerting. Holly has a summer full of tank top outfits planned already. Between this and her leg she will be able to have one of the tattoos showing on almost any occasion.

A few times this week Holly used the phrase “This is Real Life”. It sums things up nicely. We live lives that other people may not always understand and sometimes don’t even believe, but this is the kind of thing that happens in the Really Real World when you are willing to laugh, have fun and follow through on some of your thoughts and ideas.

Do something for yourself that you could have never imagined. Wear kitty ears in public. Laugh. Love whenever you can and remember to tell them people around you how much they mean to you.

Life is good.

Posted in tattoo
Tags: 3d nipple illusion tattoo, bird feet tattoo, dead mouse tattoo, extra nipples, necomimi ears, tattoo sleeve

Finally got to that Bernini & Holly’s birthday week begins

•February 6, 2015 • Leave a Comment

I was (as you already know) super bummed about having to delay the appointment for the Bernini tattoo. Fortunately for me he was able to come back in pretty quickly. I had blocked the week out to hang out with Holly for her birthday and she was coming in a day later than we had originally discussed.

Was a big tattoo (on a big arm) and he sat great. Didn’t even bat an eye when I started to jump around areas at the end. I am really really hoping that I get to see this healed up and get some photos after the redness has gone away. There is a lot going on in this that you can’t really see because of the irritation to his skin.

The quote is from a Black Label Society song.

And then this happened.

As many of you know already I make reconstructive nipple areola tattoos primarily for women who have had mastectomies. Holly has said for a while that she wanted to get one from me so that she could show people what it is that I do. Since putting a nipple in a random place is odd already, we discussed ways that we could make it even more interesting.

We talked about placement – my favorite suggestion being on the far outside of the breast near the armpit so that when she was wearing a tank top and had some side boob showing there would be a nipple there.

We talked about color – perhaps a greenish zombie colored sort of thing.

In the end we went with a double nipple. Since the area that we were going to be placing the nipples had some existing tattoo work I matched a color a little darker and more vibrant than I would have gone with normally on her skin tone.

The finished product – double nipples. Holly was texting with a friend during this process and she had said that from the one direction the nipples looked like eyes with the stitch line making a smile under them. Once we agreed this was the case, we decided to enhance this effect by adding a nose. Tada. The once again finished tattoo. Now complete with nose and whiskers.

We spent most of today visiting, hanging out and working on drawings for the tattooing we will be doing tomorrow. After that was winding down we started working on this sock monkey. He has been around the shop for too long with no tattoos. The wet paint got to be too messy (and in too many places) so we stopped for the night – but he will undoubtedly have more tattoos soon. If you would like to help decorate the sock monkey, stop in to the Greece shop and/or let me know and we can make arrangements. I think I might need to add some glitter paint to the whole thing and we will definitely need to design a back piece for him.

Tomorrow there will be cheesecake, fun tattoos and more surprises.

Stay tuned.

And wish Holly a Happy Birthday. It’s Saturday.

Posted in tattoo, White Tiger Tattoo, You Can't Make This Shit Up
Tags: 3d, Bernini Jesus tattoo, nipple, nipple tattoos, sock monkey

Comfort Zone? Yeah, get out of there!

•February 3, 2015 • 1 Comment

Experimenting. Learning. Not being afraid to make something that doesn’t look as good in the pursuit of learning new things, new mediums and growing as an artist.

I am very line driven in my art. I don’t know if that is from tattooing for so long or it is just in my nature, it doesn’t really matter. What this means is that I find the edges of things first and try to lay those down and get those right and then start working on values after. There are artists out there who work the other way – they establish the dark light patterns in a vague way and then pull the details out after. This is foreign to me and I want to understand it better. In the pursuit of that and my constant battle with the ickiness of charcoal I experimented with some this week. It’s completely backwards to my thinking and my “comfort zone”.

There are things that I am happy with about them and things that I really dislike about them – but there is learning and that was the point of the exercise.

—-

The AYU Art Group had planned a little revival this Monday. Weather decided to try and thwart us, but a few hearties braved the elements and showed up. I was really glad. We had fun and I am hoping that we will be able to go back to making it a more regular event again. I like learning from other artists and making art in a group setting really helps everyone stretch and grow. Plus it helps overcome the troll like nature that many of us can develop (okay me. I’m talking about me. Left to my own decides I would be a hermit.)

Many thanks to Stephen, Dusty, Randall and Joe for braving the weather and coming out to play.

Nothing new and groundbreaking here. Much more firmly inside the comfort zone. This one isn’t finished, but it felt good to paint.

Figure drawing was cancelled due to the weather. So nothing from that to show you. I am scheduled to make the Bernini piece that I was denied last week. So barring anymore unexpected illnesses or disasters, I get to make that today. Woohoo! Pictures soon.

Posted in Art, AYU Art Group, drawing, ny, Oil painting, painting, rochester, TeeJay
Tags: charcoal, drawing, faces, sketchbook, sketching

Bernini was a Bust

•January 29, 2015 • 1 Comment

So yesterday I had an appointment to make this amazing tattoo based on a Bernini bust. Was feeling better and with a successful day of tattooing under my belt on Tuesday I figured I was good to go.

I won’t get into graphic details, but suffice it to say that I was very very wrong. I made it most of the way into the shop before I started getting sick and made it to the shop only to wind up curled up on the floor of the bathroom with a pillow. (Brought to me by Starr and for the record a BRILLIANT idea! No one has ever brought me a pillow when I was sick on the bathroom floor. Should it ever happen again I will try to make sure I have one at my disposal.)

So no Bernini bust. Client was super understanding, but I was disappointed. When I finally made it back to my house I reached out to my appointments for today to let them know that I wouldn’t be able to tattoo them today.

Super bummed, but for the best as I am still not feeling 100% and my thought has always been that I would rather disappoint someone for not tattooing them then disappoint them with a less than stellar tattoo.

I got through my email and a few other projects that I had to work on at the shop. I wanted to spend some time doing something that felt more productive than answering emails.

I have had this “fake skin” at the shop for a while now. I bought it to see if it would be good for working with to teach people techniques for the medical tattooing. I gave it a go today. Unfortunately it does not work well to approximate skin and the colors take completely differently on it than on skin so it wouldn’t even be good for color theory.

I did things to this fake skin that would be HORRIBLE if they were done to a real live human being. I had to go way more drastic with the colors than I would with a person. It was an interesting experiment anyhow and was worth trying. (Keep learning, keep pushing.)

Here are the results:

And here is a photo of my adorable kitty Toby so that I can use him as the featured image and not offend the censors on various media.

Off to work on drawings and supervise Stephen who is now trying his hand at fake skin.

Posted in tattoo
Tags: 3d nipple tattoo, areola tattooing, reconstructive nipple tattooing, tattoo

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

•January 28, 2015 • Leave a Comment

I’ve been sick. I think everyone in my sphere knows that I was sick because I spent so much time whining about it via social media.

Facebook saved me from losing my mind while I was so incapacitated that I could even draw. When I started to feel a bit better I had gotten my sketch pad out and just stared at it for the better part of a day. I couldn’t even make stuff at that point. What happened next was some free form doodling.

When I got into work yesterday I was showing them to Stephen and he really felt drawn to the little sock puppet guy.

My appointment for the day was someone I used to do a lot of work for and haven’t seen much of the last few (ten?) years. It was good to catch up and make this automotive inspired sugar skull for him. Partially because we have know each other for so long and partially because he really is a nice guy… he was patient with me and let me take my time getting back into the routine of my day.

After finishing with Eric I had enough time left over to make the sock puppet sketch that Stephen liked into a tattoo for him. Stephen is the apprentice at the shop and I have to tell you (and I have told him) he has some weird taste in what he likes to have tattooed on him. In this case it worked out great for me since I got to make a sock puppet tattoo and that was not something I could have ever imagined being called upon to create.

(the usual tattoo artist disclaimer sort of thing – I did not make any of the other tattoos that are visible in this photo besides the sock puppet)

Today I get to make a Bernini inspired piece and am super excited. Hopefully I will have photos to show you soon-ish.

Have a great day and enjoy your passions (and share them where you can).

Posted in tattoo
Tags: automotive sugar skull, sock puppet, sock puppet tattoo, Sugar Skull, sugar skull tattoo

Figure Drawing January 26th, 2015

•January 27, 2015 • Leave a Comment

Was able to attend figure drawing last night despite the weather and my recent illness. Feels good to be out and about again.

Nothing better to make one appreciate the day to day mundane than being laid up for a week. Must remember to work on that whole gratitude thing more often.

—-

After posting this it looks to me like her leg is too short in the last drawing. It might not be really, but I modified it anyhow. I may look at it tomorrow and decide that something else is wrong. But here it is anyhow.

Posted in Art, Figure Drawing, ny, rochester, Sketchbook
Tags: charcoal, figure drawing, Steve Carpenter Studio