Just TeeJay's Blog

Relatively Regular Update

•November 12, 2013 • 6 Comments

Hi!

Went away for a week. Did you miss me?

Okay, I didn’t go away. I just didn’t post here. Now I’m back to post some more stuff on my virtual refrigerator and hopefully have some one tell me “good job” so I can get that little warm fuzzy feeling of being validated by another human being.

Isn’t that what we all want really?

His little feetsies are a tad difficult to “get” because there will be a branch for him to be holding on to later.

Adding on to Frank’s forearm with some roses for his daughter.

Added the last little bit onto the bottom of this Luis Royo tribute piece. Luis Royo was one of my early influences “back in the day” when I would read Heavy Metal magazine and my mesmerized by his ability to render skin tones and flesh.

Sketch for a painting that I am trying to sort out and I started on Monday (appears later in the post)…. Did some work on both of the bear paintings. I think the larger one is finished and I still need to do some work on the littler one.

Our Women’s Group is doing a Flash Redesign project. I’m not sure this is what they had in mind, but I had some down time and I had a lot of fun with it. The original flash is by William Grimshaw. You can tell which one is mine. Worked on Casey’s Goddess sleeve. I am looking forward to our next session on this one! So many ideas and so much fun to make. This is my cat Toby. He is a rescue and he is overly paranoid so many of my friends have never even seen him. He likes to sleep on my head.

He’s my favorite kitty – but don’t tell the others.

I brought a bunch of the paintings I have done this year so that Steve and I could talk about where I am going with my work. It’s pretty cool to look back and see how far I have come with my paintings the last couple of years.

Steve has suggested that I make some triptychs since I am working on this size canvas and they work well. So I started three new paintings on Monday.

I had posted on Instagram last week that our model didn’t show up for figure drawing – but I hadn’t talked about it here. We had some of the class members “stand in”. I found it uber weird to be trying to draw people that I know, so I packed in early.

I got home and felt guilty for having crapped out on my practice. So I grabbed my friend’s selfie off of Instagram and drew that. She is actually way cuter than she looks in this. This week the model showed. I am still messing around with media and think I used a different pencil/pen/charcoal/marker or whatever for most of these and switched paper for the longer poses…. and Steve got tricky on us and used an underlight which made things weird (and really pissed off the guy who was trying to take photographs).

Which brings us to today – I added another dragonfly to Melinda’s collection and got some more color put into Frank’s Pandora backpiece.

Posted in Art, Oil painting, painting, rochester, ny, Sketchbook, tattoo
Tags: bear painting, cover up tattoo, crow tattoo, dragonfly tattoo, Freyja tattoo, Idunna tattoo, Luis Royo angel tattoo, Pandora tattoo, roses tattoo

Not Good City of Rochester

•November 12, 2013 • 2 Comments

So now in order to get a Business Permit for the City of Rochester.

I have to do the following:

– Send them a copy of my Photo Identification (reasonable to prove that I am who I say that I am, unreasonable since I have been dba’d at this location since 1995 and in business for several years prior to that)

– Provide them with my maiden name

– Give them my home address

– Give them the name of my Partner (personal partner, not business partner)

– My home phone number (and my cell phone number)

– My date of birth

– Agree that they have the right to ask anyone who works out of my establishment for valid ID upon request of any City Employee

– Meet with a Neighborhood Service Center staff to discuss the operation of my business and the City’s expectation of me as a good neighbor

– Agree that I am responsible for controlling the “conduct of persons on or immediately adjacent to the site” and “immediately disperse loiterers”

– Must have a “Security Plan in place for the review and approval of the Rochester Police Department which shall minimally address the following: lighting, alarms, all exterior lighting must be maintained and functioning properly.”

– Agree to clean the property and all areas within 100 feet of property lines

– Agree to never cover more than 25% of my windows with signs or decorations

– I “must be willing to meet with City leaders and neighborhood leaders with reasonable justification and notification”

– It is “suggested” that I participate in my Neighborhood Business Association. This is the only item which is suggested on this list.

There is far more than this as well. These are just the items which rubbed me the wrong way.

While I understand what the City of Rochester is trying to do – I have to completely disagree with the way that they are going about it.

This is invasive and unnecessary.

You can NOT regulate morality. Either people would have naturally done the right thing on their own or they won’t. Making us sign a piece of paper isn’t going to change someone’s character. All it does it make me put my business and livelihood at risk if I stand up and say that this is unreasonable.

I am hugely disappointed. I can sum it up with a quote that I stole a long time ago “Good Initiative, Poor Judgment”.

Let’s see where this goes from here.

Posted in rochester, ny
Tags: city, freedom, liberty, NY, permit, rochester

Yes, I was painting and making tattoos too

•October 29, 2013 • Leave a Comment

I know that my last post was a tad bit brief. It seem that my home computer no longer has the desire to deal with pesky things like photo imports. I can understand. There are days when I don’t want to do what I am supposed to be doing either.

But I was still making stuff this week. I had two full days at medical facilities and one day when life got in the way of work… so there isn’t as much as I would like. But truth be told – I never make as much stuff as I would like. If I could figure out how not to sleep so that I could spend more time painting and tattooing I would. And that’s saying a lot because I really really like sleep.

A friend of mine who doesn’t like to be mentioned on the internet sent me flowers. Thank you. They are beautiful and much appreciated. Wayne came in to get some touch up work done on the portrait of his son Mason that we made a few weeks ago. I was able to (remembered to) take a photo of the one that we made of his son Evan a few years ago. Next time I should remember to take the photos in better light. I know you are all used to my photography skills at this point.

Mason’ face is swollen in a few spots here from the touch up. Since Mariah has been out we have all been chipping in to help tattoo some of her appointments. Saturday I made this TokiDoki tattoo for Kevin. Since he can’t wear his wedding ring (and this tattoo is for him and his wife) he also got a mini version on his ring finger. I think that I finished the newborn delivery painting that I was working on. A few more days of starting at it to be sure and then I will sign it and send it on off to the amazing young woman that I painted it for. With one painting wrapped up is was time to start on another. This time I am revisiting bear. There will be a companion painting to this one that I haven’t quite figured out yet.

The mice were an idea that I had for a super secret squirrel project that I am working on. I don’t think the mice will actually work out for what I had in mind. So maybe I will paint them or maybe they will wind up being for something else. I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Enjoy your day and do something that you love.

Posted in Art, drawing, Oil painting, painting, Sketchbook, tattoo, TeeJay
Tags: bear, bunny, color realism tattoo, mice, oil painting, painting, portrait tattoo, tattoo, toki doki tattoo, tokidoki

Figure Drawing class October 27th 2013

•October 28, 2013 • Leave a Comment

My computer is being obstinate. So this is an experiment to see if I can upload my photos from class tonight directly from the iPad. So if there’s no photos here…. It didn’t work 🙂

Posted in Uncategorized

So much going on….

•October 22, 2013 • 1 Comment

I’ve heard people talk about “good stress” and how when there are lots of things going on – it can be stressful. Even if it is “good” things – like when someone is getting married or having a baby, these are “good” events in our lives – but they can still lead to feeling overwhelmed.

I am in the midst of feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes it has felt like way too much and other times I wonder what the heck my problem could possibly be – but either way at every corner the world has put a bunch of people in my path who have been wonderfully supportive sometimes when they didn’t even know it. I would love to list a bunch of them here, but the little Bird of Paranoia that lives in my head tells me that for sure I will forget someone and they will be hurt. So instead I throw a great big THANK YOU! out to the Universe and the people in it, and in my life.

Thank you for picking me up. Thank you for hugging me and loving me, most especially on the days that I don’t feel like I deserve it at all.

I am loved beyond measure and so very very fortunate to have a wonderful circle of family, friends and acquaintances who make all days worth it. I am truly blessed.

Thank you all! I love you more than I can really tell you.

——–

I’m adding on to Frank’s arm – working in between the lettering (that I don’t know who made it) and now I am crunching in on the work that Joey Pavone made on his upper arm. The skull that you can see now snuggled next to the rose at the top of these photos is Joey’s. There is also a piece further inside his upper arm that runs into the rose (that you can’t really make out in the photos because of the stencil). A healed shot of the last session on Frank’s back. A bit of the drawing of Freyja with a kaleidoscope filter…. for no reason other than it looked cool.

Flying Rodent tattooed on, but without his little mousie background. I took a little liberty with Photoshop to stick his wing on here – so he has two butts in the photo (but doesn’t on Casey’s leg). Very beginnings on Casey’s Freyja tattoo and what will become a Goddess sleeve (another exciting project!!!) Obviously there will be much more detail in Freyja and her falcon at a later date.

I finished up this Flying Rodent Painting. Of course to not confuse him with the other Flying Rodent Painting I have been calling this one Cairo – but maybe it would be better if I called him “Landed Rodent”? With that one finished up (but not signed yet, wasn’t willing to make that final commitment until I look at him at home for a few days). I decided to start on another painting. I have a sketch of this one that I am really happy with, but since I hadn’t originally designed it as a painting it took me a bit to sort out how it should fit on the canvas. The Flying Lessons Painting is FINALLY finished! and while I have not signed this one, there will be NO more corrections or messing around with this one. These last few details that I added on Monday are IT. I’m finished. I shall work on it NO MORE! This one (as you well know) was quite the struggle, but I am please with the end results.

Monday night I was able to make it back to Figure Drawing. I’m glad that I have been able to attend so much more regularly again now. Between the Painting Class and Figure Drawing I am able to hold on to my sanity just a little bit better.

I MAY have finally found a combination of papers and materials that while not happy with, I think that I can work with and come up with some better results. This last figure drawing photo is the first one with this combination. Hopefully there will be more in the coming weeks and with time I will learn to work quicker and more efficiently with them.

And lastly my friend/client Gretchen posted this great photo on Facebook today of her kitty and the tattoo that I made for her. I asked it if I could share it here. Never underestimate the power of Kitty Love during times of Stress.

Posted in Art, drawing, introspection, Oil painting, painting, rochester, ny, Sketchbook, tattoo, TeeJay
Tags: back piece tattoo, black and grey tattoo, charcoal, figure drawing, flying rodents, gesture drawing, oil painting, painting, Pandora tattoo, Steve Carpenter Studio

Interview on Knnections

•October 22, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Kristin Ward interviewed me on her WordPress blog Knnections. So if you would like to read even MORE of my stories you can find the article here TeeJay Dill: Creator – Knnections

Posted in TeeJay
Tags: interview, knnections, teejay

Heir Presumptive?

•October 17, 2013 • 1 Comment

I have a hard time naming my blog posts. Titles aren’t something that comes naturally and left entire to my own devices they would say things like “Hey” or “It’s Me Again”… but that doesn’t help anyone sort through them at all.

I was going to name this one Heir Apparent – but I looked it up and it doesn’t seem to quite fit. So we will go with Heir Presumptive, it seems to fit a little bit better.

Anyhow, enough insight into TeeJay and my thought process. Get to the point.

My internet friends have helped me out tons in the past so I am trying again. I am looking for an artist to add to the family at White Tiger. A specific type. I’m looking for a tattoo artist who likes to work with portraits and realism. There aren’t a lot of artists who work in this style and I need someone to help back me up.

When someone comes into one of the shops looking to have color portraits done and they don’t want to wait for me to do it (or I’m not booking appointments at the time) I would really like to have someone in the shops that I could refer them to. We have some artists who make some types of portraits and I can pass some of them along – but I would like someone who wants to do lots more of this style.

There will come a day down the road where I will no longer be able to tattoo. I would like to have years to work with someone to teach them as much as I can about this style (and in the meantime learn together) so that one day when I step down and let the kids do all of the tattooing in the shops I will have at least one artist that I can have take over care of my clients. Between now and then I would like someone to help inspire me and who I can bounce ideas and techniques around with.

Obviously I am not looking to apprentice anyone. I am looking for an artist who has been tattooing long enough to know what direction that they would like to go with their art and what they would like to focus on in the future. Someone who thinks that I have something to teach them and would like to learn more. Someone with an existing portfolio.

I have discussed this with friends and they have asked me if I “have my eye” on anyone in particular. I don’t operate that way. I’m not looking to lure someone out of a shop that they are happy in. I’m not going to go headhunting. I am going to put this out to the Universe and if the right person comes along – great! and if not, then it wasn’t meant to be.

If you know of anyone, please pass this info along to them. Easiest way for someone to contact me in regards to this (or anything) is to email me. My email address is teejay1 (little at symbol) frontiernet.net

Some examples of the type of work I am talking about:

Posted in tattoo, White Tiger Tattoo
Tags: color realism, help wanted, hiring tattoo artist, tattoo, tattoo artist, tattoo artist needed

What is Important to You?

•October 15, 2013 • 1 Comment

Things happen. Life changes drastically in a heartbeat.

What is important to you? Who will you miss if they aren’t beside you? What will you regret not doing if your time becomes short?

Take time today to tell someone that you love and appreciate them. Look at your life and make sure it is going the way that you want it to.

—-

All done being serious.

Here are some pretty photos for you to look at:

We added another dragonfly tattoo to Melinda’s collection. Melinda and I have known each other for a really long time. I would put her in the Back in the Day category – fortunately not so far back in the day that she knew me when I was drinking. It’s fun to catch up and see what is going on in her life these days and to see how far we have come over the years.

My friend Holly was in town (Holly and I were supposed to be in England this week. We aren’t. That’s another story and it isn’t very interesting). We hung out and played artists. (’cause that’s what we are, AND what we like to do in our spare time). We ate too much (okay I ate to much), went to the zoo, painted, played with the kitties, had a home invasion attempt by a squirrel (his little cheeks filled with rage), shot the shit, wandered about and I introduced her to both Archimage and Poutine. Holly also brought me an AMAZING hoodie from her shop Always and Forever Tattoo that says “Classy as Fuck” on the back of it. I’m wearing it right now : )

We checked out the Group in Loop life drawing at the Hungerford Building. I had been wanting to go for a while, but since it is Thursdays during the day it may be the only time I will ever be able to attend. The other folks were all painting but since we were just there for the one day we both drew.

This one is on the newsprint – I’m still playing with papers and implements. I would like to be able to get a greater tonal range and have more control over the smoothness. I was okay with this one, but think the proportions are off.

life drawing

This one is on toned paper which my brain really thinks that I would like – but I keep having a hard time with. The paper is very smooth, but everything I use on it looks really rough. It’s very difficult to get a good transition or a nice line. I’ll keep experimenting.

Holly and I set up shop and painted in my living room. Which was AWESOME! It was great to have company and space to work and kitties to visit with while working.

This whole “Time Off” thing is something that I could really get used to.

And of course Monday night was back to practicing Figure Drawing. More messing around with papers. The last two are on a different toned paper. This one was gray instead of the brown which should work better. It was bigger which definitely works better…. but I still haven’t found a medium that I am happy with yet. I will keep working on it and of course keep working on the rendering and the proportions.

Most days I think I have a pretty good grasp of what is important to me. I don’t know if I do a good enough job of telling the people in my life that they are important to me.

It’a another thing I am working on.

Posted in Art, drawing, introspection, Oil painting, painting, tattoo, TeeJay
Tags: figure drawing, flying rodent, gesture drawing, life drawing, oil painting, painting

I just make Pictures

•October 8, 2013 • Leave a Comment

It’s not the most important thing in the world. During times of crisis and upheaval though there is peace and calm in throwing my brain into the act of creation.

Here is some of what I have been up to.

Made this portrait of Wayne’s son for him.

Put Kurt’s Pop Pop (Grandpa) on his arm. Pretty snazzy dude!

Kurt gifted me with this amazing rabbit’s foot which I was happy to acquire and Kurt’s family was glad to have out of the house. < dry dead >

Eric came in for his second sit on his first tattoo. As (I think) I said last time this piece is based on the artwork of Luis Royo who is an artist I have admired since I started reading Heavy Metal magazine (way) back in the day.

We may add some lettering or background at a later date (still deciding) either way I will finish off more of her legs to wherever we wind up ending her.

Mondays are my day off and we are into the Painting Class Season (yay!!!). Progress shots from this week. I am happier with the nose on the bunny from the Flying Lessons and am still more confident that I will actually finish this painting and be happy with it.

another flying rodent another flying rodent painting in progress

And of course Monday night is back to Figure Drawing practice.

I tried messing around with that paper again that I used last week. I like the color and I like the finish – but because it is so small I had a really hard time getting any kind of detail with it. I got frustrated and grabbed a ball point pen – which would have worked out much better if it would have had black ink in it. I got a recommendation of some other pencils/charcoals to try and I’ll see if I can pick some up before next week’s class.

I have a friend visiting this coming week for an Art Date : ) so hopefully we will get to make some more fun stuff for me to put up here on my virtual refrigerator.

Posted in Art, drawing, Oil painting, painting, Sketchbook, tattoo, TeeJay
Tags: color realism tattoo, figure drawing, luis royo, oil painting, painting, pin-up, portrait tattoo, silverback tattoo ink, tattoo

Reporting Late (but you can’t fire me!)

•October 2, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Once again a little sample of what I have been up to this past week.

Client had sent me this sketch for her left calf:

The first thing that I had to work on was what to do with the knot. She had pulled it from a piece of jewelry and while pretty it really bugged me that the three points of the knot were not all the same. (Did that make sense?) once that was sorted out it was time to figure out how to add the other elements. I had thought that maybe we could incorporate the initials on something No good. Too busy and she didn’t like the acorns. So I went back to focusing on the knot. Once that was worked out – added the initials back in and added the branch back in for background and made up the line drawing and finally the tattoo

I also worked on Frank’s Pandora back piece again. I’m having so much fun with this tattoo and he has been sitting really well lately so I am hoping we can keep up the great pace on it.

Made a memorial tattoo of a son on his Dad. These are always hard emotionally and he was a great first time client. Not ever having been tattooed before and hiring someone to tattoo a portrait of your son can be nervewracking… he handled all of it really well.

I would like to get photos of this again once it is healed and the redness is gone.

I tattooed a good friend of mine who has honestly been talking about getting tattooed since before I started tattooing. This tattoo has been 25 years in the making. It still doesn’t seem real that it actually happened. This is 100% her drawing – I ran her drawing through for the stencil without modifying it at all.

Sunday I went to the zoo in Buffalo (as mentioned in my previous post) with some friends. They also took home one of my favorite older paintings. Bast is going to live with them from now on. I’m sad to see her go, but I really have too many paintings at home and I’m still making more – so room has to be made. I know she will be very happy living with Frank and Bec and maybe I will even get to visit her now and again.

Monday I was back to painting class. While I am once again struggling with the Flying Lessons painting – I am confident that I will win out this time and the problems with it can be corrected. Bunny nose definitely needs to change again though.

and then Monday night was back to Figure Drawing…

The last one was done on a new kind of paper that I am trying out. I like it so far, but it is smaller than the newsprint and will take some getting used to.