Just TeeJay's Blog

The End of an Era

•February 4, 2012 • 3 Comments

When I was looking for something different to post on my blog besides photos of tattoos and documenting my figure drawing class – this was not what I had in mind.

Of course we don’t always know what the Universe has in mind for us.

I’m not going to explain fully the whys of this decision. My family and those close to me understand and will be here to support me.

I am not booking any more appointments with anyone that I do not have an ongoing relationship with. I will be finishing up projects and will have a very select group of people that I will continue to make tattoos for. I will also continue with my medical work.

Try to think of this as my going into retirement and only making tattoos as a hobby for friends.

If you want to get tattooed at White Tiger – there is an AMAZING array of super talented artists who can take good care of you.

I have tried repeatedly the limit the number of clients that I take on. I have tried to limit the scope and size of projects that I take on. The unfortunate reality is that some people will then not make that cut. By and large most people have been really understanding. Some people have not.

That minority are making my life difficult.

I understand that everyone will react differently to disappointment.

I choose to no longer deal with those people who wish to coerce me into to making their tattoo for them and/or attempt to heap guilt or hostility on me for turning them away.

This decision will affect people. There are people on either side of this cut off who will not be happy with this decision. Including me. There are going to be great projects that I won’t be able to work on and wonderful people who I will not be given the opportunity to work with.

I wish that I could have sorted out some other way to handle this.

White Tiger has an amazing roster of talented artists in two separate locations. We have the best of the best here to pick from.

Look through the portfolios.

Meet with them in person when possible.

Go forth and get tattooed.

If you really need a TeeJay original – you can still buy one of my paintings.

Posted in tattoo, TeeJay, White Tiger Tattoo
Tags: retiring, teejay, White Tiger Tattoo

Couple of Black and Grey tattoos

•February 3, 2012 • 2 Comments

Worked on Mariah’s Alice in Wonderland sleeve a little bit more:

and today I made this koi for Tod:

both are of course done with Silverback. Mariah’s has a few different tints in it and Tod’s was made with the #11 black and the xxx Greywash set.

Posted in tattoo
Tags: Alice in Wonderland, black grey, koi, koi tattoo, silverback tattoo ink, tattoo, tattoos

Tattoo friends, tattooing a friend, some Roses and one Healed Dad

•January 31, 2012 • 1 Comment

Took a bunch of photos today –

I had an appointment to tattoo my friend Jewel today. Old friend. All the way to back in the day friend. Since I was tattooing Jewel today, Doc decided to stop in. He says that all three of haven’t just hung out in the same room for 20 years. I really hope that isn’t true.
We may however not have ever had a photo taken of all three of us together. Did you follow that?

So today photos were taken.

For anyone playing the home game…. Doc was the original owner of White Tiger Tattoo and Jewel was also here before me. We have known each other longer than that.

The rest becomes a lot of “Back in the Day” stories.

Here is what I tattooed on Jewel today. As we all know, I don’t take very good photos. So here are shots from two different light sources. Between the two of them, you can pretty much make out the tattoo.

While I was tattooing Jewel I received a delivery of flowers from a friend who doesn’t like to be mentioned by name on the internet. Thank you my traveling friend. They are beautiful.

and last but definitely not least…. Jim stopped in today so that I could get a healed photo of the tattoo I made for him of his Dad. The original pictures are here. The tattoo (of course) looks better in person than any of the photos that I managed to get – but this one is definitely much better than the fresh photos were. Thanks Jim!

Posted in tattoo, White Tiger Tattoo
Tags: pentacle, portrait, roses, tattoo, witch tattoo

Figure Drawing and More Cat photos

•January 31, 2012 • 1 Comment

Someone made a comment that they didn’t know I had kitties. I don’t know how this could be possible…. but just in case any of you missed it. I am a cat lady.

My Fur Kids

This is Toby. He was a rescue and was well under a pound when we found him. He was so dehydrated that the Vet had to inject him with water and said that he didn’t have a very good chance of living through it. I took him home and nursed him back to health. So he thinks I am his mom. He sits on my head sometimes when I am drawing and tries to supervise most things that I do.

This is the rest of the crew. The one closest to you is Loki. He is actually Teigan’s cat, but we have pretty much hijacked him at this point.
Next is Toffee. He is the bruiser of the crew. Although now back down from exceeding the 20 pound mark, he is all about loving, snacking and sleeping.
Furthest away in this photo is Tora. Tora is a predator. He prefers outside – but when he is inside has the loudest purr of any cat I have ever encountered. He is the besting nap cat we have (as in will curl up on you and nap and purr).

It is exceptionally unusual for all three of these cats to be in the same place (thus the photo being taken).

—–

And here are the photos of last nights figure drawing class.

Posted in Art, drawing, Sketchbook
Tags: drawing, figure, figure drawing, poses, sketching

Another Week in Review

•January 28, 2012 • 2 Comments

make tatttoos

make pictures

do stuff

try to get some rest

eat

Thats about what goes on in most of my days – so there fore most of my weeks. So this weekly update looks a heck of a lot like some of the others. I guess I need to start writing down some more of the back in the days stories…

but not today. Today you get the usual stuff again. The blog is called Just TeeJay’s Blog and this is pretty much all that goes on in it : )

I did some work on Sara (the Counter Goddess from Webster) and we asked Mariah to take some photos while we were working. So for a nice change for me I have some photos of my working on a tattoo. (Would one of you grammar folks let me know which would be correct… “photos of me working on a tattoo”? Photos of myself working on a tattoo”? You know how bad I am at that sort of thing) Obviously there is more to go on this one.

I did a bit of work on Natalie’s Much inspired piece. The peacock feather was existing and we reworked that first (some time ago) and have been adding around it. This is the first session on Eric’s Buddha tattoo. There will be more to come on the chest area and then more continuing on to the arm as well. The same day that I worked on Eric’s Buddha, I also finished up a winged heart on Ted. Unfortunately those photos are so horribly over exposed that there isn’t any point in posting them here. Today I finished (?) up a piece that goes across Sandy’s shoulders. The initial piece was done more than a year ago although we just started expanding on it more recently. Sandy fell in love with one of my paintings while she was getting tattooed and adopted her. So “She has Seen” has gone off to live with Sandy. Sandy also adopted the painting of the bird in my hand, but I neglected to take a photo of them together.

Tonight I was also given the opportunity to add a bit more onto Renee’s back. circumstances being what they have been, we haven’t gotten together in a little while. It was great to see both Renee and Casey tonight and I am very much looking forward to making some serious progress on this tattoo.

That’s all I got for you tonight. Perhaps I will be hugely inspired this weekend and have something amazingly different to show you next time… but probably not on accounta this is what I do and I really really like it!

Posted in Art, painting, tattoo
Tags: back, Buddha, cherry blossoms, decorative, feminine, floral, Gypsy, Mucha, tattoo, vines

SeaHorse, Figure Drawing and my Favorite Helper Cat

•January 24, 2012 • 9 Comments

Made it to figure drawing this week (yay!) Even though I haven’t had much time to work on personal projects, I still have been able to make it to class pretty consistently.

Here is what I left with this week:

Some obligatory photos of my cat “helping” with one of my drawings… because this is the internet and one must always see lots of photos of cats being cute.

And lastly this drawing I made a while back and forgot to scan it. I was going to try to draw a SeaHorse wearing a Plague Mask for Starr… but the shape of the Plague Mask didn’t really work with the SeaHorse. It wasn’t different enough from the normal shape of the head/nose.

So instead I made a pseudo SteamPunk SeaHorse… and I do not claim to be any kind of SteamPunk authority, so if it is not authentic Steam Punk, please do not tell me why. Just pretend it is a poser SteamPunk SeaHorse that didn’t know any better.

Posted in Art, drawing, Sketchbook
Tags: cat, drawing, female, figure, figure drawing, nude, seahorse, sketches, teejay

Pretend this Says Something Clever

•January 19, 2012 • Leave a Comment

I don’t have anything clever to say tonight. Just some pictures of some of the things that I have been up to this week.

This is what I worked on today. Mary was a trooper and got this all done in one sit.

Posted in Art, drawing, Sketchbook, tattoo
Tags: fairy, figure drawing, kokopelli, memorial tattoo, skull bunny, tattoo, tattoos

Couple More Random Word Drawings

•January 16, 2012 • 2 Comments

I had fun making these and hope that you get a grin out of them.

Posted in Art, drawing, Sketchbook
Tags: Art, bat, daisy, drawing, gerbil, nugget, pin, random word, reaper, sketch book

Frank’s Sugar Skull PhotoShoot

•January 12, 2012 • 8 Comments

Frank was nice enough to come back in and let me take healed photos of his tattoo. Despite my mediocre (at best) photography skills, I did manage to get some nice photos.

So here is Frank and his Sugar Skull tattoo. This piece is on his right side rib cage and was made using the Siverback tattoo inks. The tints to the rose and leaves are due to using the Silverback different tinted grays (Mold and Fresh) and are more noticeable in person.

Posted in Art, tattoo
Tags: ribs, Silverback, silverback tattoo ink, skull tattoo, Sugar Skull, sugar skull tattoo, tattoo, tattoos

Bike Art Book

•January 12, 2012 • 2 Comments

Today is all about Steve. Bet you didn’t know when you woke up this morning that someone else would be blogging about you today.

Steve came to me with this project with a folder full of reference, scans, print outs & even a disk with the images stored on it. I have to admit that it wasn’t at first a project that I was thrilled about. Hard lines that cross the body, detailed gears and pieces that needed to all be accurate. It makes for a very technically difficult tattoo and can wind up looking very awkward on the body.

Steve and I went back and forth over what would work best and how the design could be modified. He brought me the actual gears (which I have now hung on my wall in the Greece shop) so that I could photograph them and get more accurate reference. Steve was incredibly patient while I struggled with getting the design to someplace where I was happy with it.

The tattoo was done in several sessions and wound up pretty cool in the end (well, as far “end” as it is now anyhow. I hear tell that we will be adding more to it eventually).

Somewhere along the line before the tattoo was finished completely I received an email in my spam folder that asked in I had any photos of bicycle tattoos. I wasn’t sure what it was all about – but I wrote back to them. Several cryptic emails later and months of nothing and today this arrived in the mail.

With Steve’s tattoo inside of it:

The artwork in the book is really incredible and I am sure that I will be spending several hours soaking it all in (whenever I get some free time).

Here are some photos of the tattoo all the way finished and healed:

If you are interested in getting your own copy of the book the info is here BIKE ART BOOK

It’s a great book, well printed and with a variety of super talented artists. Rather you are into bicycles or not, it’s still a great book (and I’m not just saying that because I am in it).

Posted in Art, tattoo
Tags: bicycle, bike, Bike Art, Bike Art book, Steve Morrell, tattoo