Lil’ Tommy and his partner are putting on the Asheville Tattoo & Piercing Expo this summer in Asheville, NC. Tommy had asked me to design a girlie shirt for them.
As in all things, the cats want to help in every way that they can. Toby is especially helpful.
The Winged Mer-Bunny is a repeating theme in my work lately. While many of the images arrive from specific events in my life – this particular one doesn’t have a good story, but it needed to happen anyhow.
This one is on my friend Michelle. When I posted this on Instagram I got some amazing feedback there and in person. It appears that a lot of people have poppies as their favorite flower. I myself am planting some this year (I had pink ones my Grandma gave me in the backyard but there just wasn’t enough sun for them). 
This tattoo is a memorial piece so I don’t feel comfortable explaining the symbols that are in it. If you run into her somewhere I am sure she would love to tell you how awesome her sister was. 
A new and a healed dog portrait. I apologize I don’t remember these babies names. I want to say the healed one is Rudy, but I honestly don’t remember (another sign I should be posting more frequently). 
Jenn was nice enough to stop in so that I could take photos of her double-exposed kitties (the reference photo was double exposed) and since I was tattooing Jesse (Counter Volunteer Extraordinaire) took some for me. Thanks ladies! 
We are doing some scar camouflage/covering for my lovely friend Melinda. There will be more of this coming and all of it will be bicycle themed. 
Working on this cover-up of Taz on Paul. Again there are a lot of things going on in this tattoo and you’re not going to “get” why they are there – but that pink thing is a pink fuzzy slipper and the negative waves are going to eventually be Fluff. Like the substance fluff, not an adjective of something that is fluffy. Stay tuned for the next session which will add the bowling pins from a bowling game on the back of his arm (and probably finish it up as well). 
We are still working on Casey’s Goddesses Sleeve. Making good progress and excited to work on it again soon. 
Mariah started this Brian Viveros tattoo and I finished it up. Making it the first “collaborative tattoo” between Mariah and I. Hoping to have some other ones again in the future (that we get to work on at the same time). 
Making progress on the Octopus tattoo. Have to take a break for a little bit, but she will be back soon!
Took healed photos of Bob’s Cthulhu tattoo and some stage photos of the piece we are working on now…
Portraits of his sons for a different Bob.
Another session on Matthew’s Buddha back piece.
Made an outline free lotus piece for Chelsea who thinks she is wiggly…. she has no idea how wiggly most people are when they are getting their ribs tattooed.
Got the honor of making Heta the Elephant immortal for Beckie. Super awesome lady with a fun tattoo idea 🙂
There you go. No good excuse for going so long in between posts. While I did become a Grandmother since I was posting last – that didn’t involve and kind of work on my part.
One of the tattoo groups that I am involved with does a flash redraw project every month. Some of them are on Instagram under the #SWCR
I made this portrait of Aaron for his brother in October of 2011. I was able to grab a healed photo this week when he was in the shop booking for an appointment with Adam. He has taken good care of it and I was grateful for the opportunity to grab a healed photo. Here is what the tattoo looked like when it was first done. 
and what it looks like now. 
Bob wanted this scene from Revelations 19:15 He had an image that he had pulled from the internet which I had to simplify to fit under his arm. I was unable to figure out who the original artist was. 
My friend Clayton came in today to have a Lieutenant tattoo done to celebrate his recent retirement from the Rochester Fire Department. He brought in what was left of a shield that I painted for him in 2008. With some digging around I was able to find a photo of when it was first done. 
Quite a few fires and some years of abuse on that one! Now that Clayton is retired hopefully this tattoo will fare much better than the shield did 🙂 
Off to have dinner with the family. Hope everyone enjoys their SuperBowl Sunday tomorrow.
I was honored to get tattooed recently by the Amazing Chris Dingwell. I have known Chris for more years than I was able to figure out and while Paul has gotten extensive work from him, I thus far had not. As if that wasn’t cool enough all on it’s own – the Lovely and Talented Holly Azzara came and hung out with us while I was getting tattooed. Which helped lots even if it may have been boring for Holly since I don’t cope terribly well with getting tattooed. I totally forgot to take any photos of my own so here are the ones that I pulled from each of their instagrams.
The rabbit and elk are based on the work of Beth Cavener Stichter.
I’m a complete baby when I get tattooed and Chris was wonderfully patient and having Holly there helped. Hopefully I will conduct myself with more dignity when we are working on the color.
This Chris had me make some lilies for her years ago to camouflage a birthmark that she was unhappy with. She came back and we drew this “little” addition to the existing tattoo. This type of design is nice to draw on since it allows me to make the lilies and swirls flow better on her body. We decided afterwards to reoutline the older tattoo – so she will be back soon to have that done.
On Tuesday I presented for the New York Figure Study Guild on the difference between designing images for a 2D surface and designing images for placement on the body. I was incredibly nervous but have since been assured that I did well and that the attendees enjoyed themselves and learned something new. That was better than I could have hoped for! (My primary objective was not to throw up.)
They also allowed me to hang some work – the paintings are kind of hard to see here, but I think that I have posted all of them here previously. 
On an unrelated to anything note – I found this old picture from “back in the day”.
And on a wonderful note some of us were able to go and meet Miss Mariah for breakfast – had a wonderful visit and can’t wait until she is ready to be back at the shop. I miss hearing her giggle while we are at work.
Got to work on this Octopus tattoo (second sitting) this will be an amazing piece and I look forward to sharing the progress here. 
On Sunday Debra VanWert organized a bunch of artists (which in of itself is like herding cats) and we got together to studio the Zorn Palette. If you aren’t familiar with this artist he is worth looking up Anders Zorn – he worked with an exceptionally limited palette – primarily consisting of black, white, cadmium red and yellow ochre (some people believe that he also used a blue sometimes – but I won’t argue that one either way).
I’ve never done one of these before and I decided part way through to ignore some of the directions… but I had a great time, learned lots and am inspired to try some new things with my paintings.
Here is mine before I pulled the tape off 
There was lots of mixing and messing to get to that point. 
Here is Pat DeLuca‘s while she was working on it (and my glutard friendly snacks). 
And Brian O’Neill‘s before he pulled the tape off. 
The finished project. No idea what I am going to do with it – but I am pretty pleased with myself anyhow 🙂
Monday night was figure drawing (it was cancelled last week due to the weather). I am having a hard time with the new format – I miss having more of the shorter poses to warm up and figure out what I am doing – but I am sure that I will adjust in no time.
(kind of lost track of time on that last one)
Today was back to making tattoos and I got to make a very fun tattoo for a great client. This is Chris’ dog Balboa. (There were an unusual number of Chrises in this update).
It seems like it has been forever. So much has happened over the last couple of weeks.
Now that I am finished with the Holidays and the Plague (I had the flu for the first time ever and I really really did not enjoy it at all) hopefully I can start getting caught up.
Pictures again. Weekly report.
Added the final dragonflies to Melinda’s collection. It was wonderful to have this time together to catch up and get reacquainted. 
Had another session on Casey’s Goddess sleeve. Casey is great to visit with and I am having lots of fun with this piece. Pretty soon I get to start adding all of the celtic knots in too! 
Just love this photo. For anyone who doesn’t know, I have a thing for Angry Bunnies. It’s a long story and I’ve tried to put it in writing (sitting currently in the draft folder here on my blog) I don’t know if I will ever be able to explain it properly. In the meantime, just enjoy the bunny. 
Figure Drawing. Feeling pretty meh about this week’s session. Oh well, it’s always good practice. 
Last week I spent three days at Steve Carpenter’s Studio working on painting from life.
On the first day we did drawings of each of the models on newsprint, then transferred them to canvas. Patrick was in the morning and then Jules after lunch (all three days) since Steve did more demonstration and talking at the beginning of the day, we had a little bit less time working with Patrick than we did with Jules. They were both excellent models with great dispositions and would both be wonderful to work with again.
Day 1
On the second day we fixed the charcoal drawings in place on the canvas and started laying in the transparent colors and establishing the darks and the forms. Hopefully correcting the drawing and refining features in the process.
Day 2
The third day should have been spent layering another glaze on top followed by more of the opaque colors for the lighter areas – but unfortunately I had not added enough of the quick dry stuff to my paint on the second day and areas of both paintings were still pretty wet. I did as much as I could anyhow.
Day 3
Here are some of the Patricks from the class:
I did some other stuff this week and have Figure Drawing tonight. So there will be more within the next few days.
Posting from my iPad, which doesn’t play nicely with WordPress…. So just pictures today.
On accounta it’s my day off and I like to make stuff.
Unfortunately this week was the last Monday painting class at Steve Carpenter’s for a while. I will still be able to go on Monday nights to Figure Drawing – but Steve doesn’t offer Monday classes every semester. The challenge now will to be to make sure I continue to make time to paint every Monday.
Knowing the class was coming to an end I wanted to have a bunch of paintings started. So this Monday in class I spent the time laying out a new painting instead of actually painting.
With that one laid out on canvas I went home to paint.
I was in a weird mood and I think I spent more time playing with paint than actually painting…. but that is extremely therapeutic as well.
Monday night was back to Figure Drawing. Still messing around with what I like to use on these. Used charcoal pencils for the shorter poses and regular old plain normal pencils for the longer poses. The pencils are so much easier to work with and draw with – but unfortunately don’t have that nice rich black that the charcoals have.
meh. It’s all learning.
Deb snapped a photo of me drawing in class which she was nice enough to send to me. She is a very talented artist (and I am fortunate enough to own one of her pieces) you can check out her work here Debra VanWert and probably lots of other places online.
Back to playing adult today. I hope that you are enjoying your day.
I am a female tattoo artist and shop owner. I believe in love and creation above fear and destruction. I am a passionate person and respect and admire that in others regardless of where their passion lies.
But at the end of the day, all I want to do is add a little beauty to the world and try to be a blessing in the lives of those around me.
Just TeeJay's Blog 