Just TeeJay's Blog

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.

Yesterday and today were medical tattoo days, so no photos there.

Posted in Oil painting, painting, rochester, ny, Sketchbook, tattoo, TeeJay
Tags: bast nap, celtic knot tattoo, figure drawing, flying lessons painting, mandala tattoo, Pandora tattoo, to thine own self be true

Buffalo Zoo

•September 30, 2013 • 1 Comment

Yesterday Paul and I went and spent some time at the Buffalo zoo with our friends Frank & Bec.

Once again I neglected to take any photos of the humans, but here are some animal pictures for your enjoyment.

Posted in Travel
Tags: buffalo zoo, polar bear cubs, tiger playing in water, zoo

Weekly report from the Home Office

•September 24, 2013 • 4 Comments

Seems like I am posting the same format the last few weeks – but at least with different content.

Here is my token tattoo photo:

Random visitor to my office at the Webster shop:

Monday morning brought the return of Painting Classes at the Steve Carpenter Studio:

And as usual back to Figure Drawing on Monday night:

Some of the other participant’s work from this session:

And finally a random shot of my palette while I was cleaning it off (so that none of the Nudes show up as the thumbnail and get me in trouble where I post).

Have a great day!

Posted in Art, Oil painting, painting, rochester, ny, Sketchbook, tattoo
Tags: black cat tattoo, bunny painting, cat tattoo, cat tattoo portrait, female form study, figure drawing, gesture drawing, learning to fly painting, painting

Mondays are Art Days!

•September 17, 2013 • 2 Comments

I still make tattoos the rest of the week. Here is one that I was pretty happy with just so you don’t forget:

As I have said I have been really ambivalent about the Flying Lessons painting that I started while I was in France. I have decided to scrap it and start over. Made this thumbnail sketch and am thinking I would like to go more this direction – plus this will make it the same size as most of the other paintings in this series.

I was planning on starting work on it this Monday – but realized that I want to clear up (finish) some of the other unsigned pieces that I have floating around. Monday morning I started out with the Delirium thinking that she had quite a ways to go yet. I tweaked a few things and thought that she looked finished. Posted her to Instagram figuring that I would stare at her for a few more days before committing to signing. Spent a few minutes, decided I have to move on and start some new stuff so she got signed….

I celebrated with a “Beer” and started looking around to see what else I wanted to work on.

This piece needed some minor work and got signed.

This piece was finished a while ago but I don’t think I ever posted it finished and signed. (If I did, I apologize for repeating my self, but he is cute enough to warrant another visit).

He is making the transition from painting to tattoo and will be permanently installed on Casey’s leg (to completion) very shortly. I will be sure to post him here when that happens (and I am able to get a decent photo).

Figure drawing open studio is on Monday nights and while my figure drawing is not progressing as well as I would like – it won’t get better at all if I don’t keep at it.

and here are some clouds that I photographed last night outside of Steve Carpenter’s Studio…

I hope that you are having a great day and get to be involved in something that stirs your passion.

Posted in Art, drawing, Oil painting, painting, rochester, ny, tattoo, TeeJay
Tags: Art, compass tattoo, delirium painting, figure drawing, gesture drawing, oil painting, rabbit painting, rabbit sketch, tattoo

I need some advice and/or assistance

•September 13, 2013 • 3 Comments

I’m in need of some assistance or possibly some advice.

Here is the situation.

Some years ago I began writing a book on the reconstructive nipple/areola tattooing that I do. The reason for this was that I was getting multiple inquiries from practitioners who had been assigned the task of making these tattoos with little or no training. Often a doctor or a “superior” had assigned this task to someone who was (in the interest of protecting their job) unable to refuse to do so. The results are dismal. Patients are being experimented on by untrained professionals without their knowledge.

My greatest hope was that in putting the information involved in making these tattoos in print – that these practitioners would be given a tool to bring to their “superior” to explain to them that this is a specialized (and important) skill and can’t just be done by anyone. Or on the other end that tattoo artists who already have the training and the skill-set necessary to make these tattoos would be given the information that they need to cross over to working with medical practitioners.

Secondary to that was the hope that if these practitioners were forced to make these tattoos anyhow – that the damage to patients would be minimized.

I have been working on the book for years. I have a whole lot of information and experience in my head and some of it has actually made it to the book. I want this information to get out there. To help these people.

Unfortunately I am failing at being able to finish this book. I get disorganized. I get frustrated. I think of new information that I would like to include. At this rate there is a very high likelihood that this book will never get finished.

I feel that this information even in it’s raw form could still be beneficial. I want to get it out to the people that need it. My attempts to find someone who could ghost write/edit or in some way assist me in making the last hurdle over the finish line have not gone well. Not that people haven’t tried. (Kyla you have been especially helpful).

So what to do? Leave the manuscript in it’s current form to moulder on my hard drive? I’ve been doing that for far too long already.

Right now what I think my best option is – is to put the whole mess online for people to learn from. What is there is not pretty, but it could still be massively beneficial for a lot of people. I would like to take it online – but I do not want it available to just anyone. I am thinking some sort of passworded site (perhaps a forum where I could answer questions?) would be a good solution.

So now I am asking for help in one of two forms. Either someone who can help me figure out how to set up a passworded site OR a better idea. Please. I can’t stand having this project go nowhere anymore. Can someone help me with this?

Posted in tattoo, TeeJay
Tags: breast cancer, nipple areola complex tattooing, nipple tattooing after cancer, reconstructive tattooing

Figure Drawing September 9th, 2013 and some other stuff

•September 10, 2013 • Leave a Comment

I made this key tattoo for Sarah based on a drawing that her daughter had made for her. Wooden Key tattoo We got another session in on Frank’s Pandora back. He sat great for this session. Hopefully we can get a few more sessions like this in and we will get through this one in no time. Frank's Pandora tattoo This is Casey’s leg healed. For some reason I spaced out and cut the angel off in the photo. Sorry Casey. We finished up the Reaper Bat Nugget on Casey this session as well and started on the Flying Rodent which I will show you when we get that one finished. Reaper Bat Nugget tattoo I was able to put some time in painting and was able to repair the damage to the paintings that I made while I was in France. (They were damaged slightly from being transported back in a suitcase while they were still wet). This one still needs some work. Bear steals Hope This one I am happy with and have signed (so it’s finished). Bear and Bunny painting oil This one I still have mixed feelings on and don’t know from day to day if I am going to finish it, scrap it or like it the way that it is. flying lessons painting Mary had this tattoo made – also off of a drawing that her daughter made for her. Tiger Butterfly tattoo Eric got a great start on this Luis Royo inspired piece. It’s his first tattoo and he sat great. Can’t wait to work on this one again. A different Eric had a tattoo made of his dog Hady. Hady portrait tattoo dog . And that morning I made a quick oil study from the photo reference for the tattoo (the reference was reversed for the tattoo so that it would work better where we were placing it on his side). hady oil painting dog portrait Sunday I had a little bit of down time and was able to work a little bit more on this Delirium painting. Delirium painting in progress And a little bit more on this one. Not sure where this one is going. My daughter wanted to know if I had felt like painting from the ceiling. Monday night came the return of figure drawing. Jessie came with me this week. Still a little rough, but I value the practice always. Tried adding the warm tones in this since it was a longer pose and I’m not really happy with it. Maybe if I keep playing with it I can get better results out of it. This little guy I think I posted before saying that I wasn’t sure if he was finished. He is now (and signed) this isn’t the most accurate color representation, but it is hard to get a good photo because of all the orange. flying rodent painting I think that brings us up to current. I was doing medical tattooing today, so no photos to share. While I was at the doctor’s office doing that both my Tuesday and Friday appointments cancelled…. so I don’t know what all I will wind up doing this week.

Posted in Art, Oil painting, painting, Sketchbook, tattoo
Tags: Abominable Snowman tattoo, back piece, dog portrait tattoo, figure drawing, flying rodent, Luis Royo tattoo, Pandora tattoo, Rochester NY, tattoo, tiger butterfly tattoo, wooden key tattoo

Figure Drawing August 26th, 2013

•August 27, 2013 • Leave a Comment

I’m back from France. Since I posted photos of the trip on Instagram and Facebook, I won’t bother with them here also.

I did spend a bit of time painting and will post the pieces once they are finished (again). There was some minor damage to a couple of them from coming home only mostly dry and some of them weren’t finished anyhow.

I was very excited to finally be able to make it back to figure drawing. As expected I was a little rusty and had a difficult time with some things – but I really don’t mind. Just feels good to be getting back in a groove. There is no class next week (because it’s Labor Day) but I hope to have more for you here in two weeks.

And of course I had a cat helper this morning while I was photographing.

Posted in Art, drawing, Sketchbook
Tags: figure, figure drawing, gesture drawing

Monday Adventures

•August 5, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Amy reads the paper. I do not. I generally have no idea what is going on in the world. She keeps a pretty good eye on things.

This is a good balance (and a great friend to have around). Amy finds about all sorts of cool stuff, calls me up and we go exploring.

First on the Agenda today was to go see the “button” that they are digging out of the parking lot in Charlotte. It was some sort of base or piece that went underneath a foundry that used to be there a long time ago. I hear they are planning on putting some sort of marina in that area of Charlotte and needed to dig the “button” or “skull” of the foundry furnace up and get it out of there. Most of it is gone already, but what is left is still huge and you have to wonder if it was really a good idea to try and get it out of there or not.

Looks like a lot of work.

Also makes me wonder what other kind of goodies have just gotten paved or built over and no one has any idea that they are there.

From there we went out to Macedon to the Ganargua Creek Meadow Preserve. Definitely a beautiful place. If you are headed out that way, they will tell you to wear protective clothing from poison ivy. I would also add that bug spray might be a good idea as well. While the mosquitoes weren’t anywhere near as bad as they were at 1000 Acre Swamp, they were pretty damn excited that we were there.

This little guy was up in the reeds… like this —-> Whole lot of activity on these flowers. No filter or photoshop, the sky really looked like this today. Not sure what this is, but the new growth had a beautiful color to it.

Back to the Real World tomorrow. No Figure Drawing tonight : (

Posted in Garden, Travel
Tags: butterflies, creek Preserve, Ganargua Creek Meadow, Genesee Land Trust, Genessee Land Trust, hiking, park, snakes

Wall Therapy 2013

•August 4, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Spent the afternoon wandering around Rochester with my family taking photos of the Wall Therapy projects that we could locate. There were one or two that we couldn’t find (one of which appears to have been painted over already).

Some of these are other things we saw along the way.

Enjoy.

Posted in Art, painting, rochester, ny
Tags: Adam Francey, Bile, Conor Harrington, Daze, Faith47, graffiti, Lea, Mr Prvrt, NY, Range, rochester, Sarah C Rutherford, St Monci, wall therapy

Figure Drawing July 29th, 2013

•July 30, 2013 • Leave a Comment

They have changed the format a little bit in the Figure Drawing sessions. For the foreseeable future the sessions are from 6pm-9pm and the poses go from 1 minutes up to longer – but we will no longer be doing the 2 hour poses. I don’t see myself trying to paint during figure drawing anymore; so unless things change I will be postings drawings again instead of paintings.

Hoping to stay in the groove of posting more frequently again.

Thanks for your patience.