Just TeeJay's Blog

Figure Drawing September 26th

•September 27, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Made it back to figure drawing class even after going in the morning for painting class. I hope they don’t get sick of me over there.

This week Josh from the Greece shop came and joined me. It was really awesome to have company. Thanks Josh! If you are not familiar with Josh’s work, you can check out his blog here on his wordpress BLOG or his section on the shop WebPage.

As I mentioned in the last post, Steve had me try out the Coates Willow Charcoal and while it would be a stretch to say that I fell in love with it – it is far nicer than any charcoal that I have had to touch before (I really don’t like the way charcoal feels). So in an attempt to be a big girl and follow suggestions I used it yesterday in paint class. Then I bought a box and told myself that I am going to keep working with it. I can definitely see the advantages to using charcoal… so if I can get over my weirdness with it I am sure it would be a great tool to become more familiar with.

Working with the charcoal was much different and surprisingly I only broke my charcoal up fidgeting and moving around and not while I was actually drawing with it. I do have to admit that I was scared to press down too much with it though. It feels so fragile in the hand.

So here is what I made last night.

Posted in Art, Sketchbook
Tags: charcoal, drawing, figure, figure drawing, Steve Carpenter Studio

Start of New Art Class

•September 26, 2011 • 4 Comments

I have to admit that part of me feels like a traitor for not going back to Fred’s class this semester. I really like him and have learned a lot from him – but I feel that I need more instruction on the basics. I still feel like I am running blind when it comes to the materials and their use in oil paint.

This class is on Mondays and Fred’s class in on Tuesday nights – so I do not have to take time out of my regular work schedule to attend.

Today was the first class and I had my normal anxiety with trying anything new. It seems as though (much like Fred’s class) everyone else there has taken the class before and they all know each other. In typical new kid fashion I hid in the corner and tried to follow directions.

The course introduction said that we could work from a photograph or from one of the still life stations set up in the studio. I had opted to work from life since that is more difficult for me. It sounds like we will be doing several paintings during the duration of the program. I did not have every thing that is recommended since I did not receive a course material list ahead of time. Steve was nice enough to let me use what he had at the studio.

This was my first sketch from the still life reference. It was too big on the paper and I used the conte crayons.

Steve recommended using the charcoal instead (which we all know how much I like). But since I am trying to learn – I gave it a try. He let me use the Coates Willow charcoal that he has at the studio and I liked it much better than any of the charcoals I tried in the past. I suspected that this one was still too big – so I started another one. Pat way in I realized the angle of the head was wrong… tried to erase it and correct it and decided that newsprint is really not the best surface for attempting that on. Happier with the proportions on the this one I started building up more details. Steve came by and helped point out some of the shadow definition – so this next one is some of both of us drawing. We tightened this one up a bit further and sprayed it with fixatif. The next step was to redraw the basic image on the back (with a light table) to prepare to transfer it to the canvas. This was taped in place on the canvas. and then traced over with a pencil to transfer it to the canvas. I am figuring the next step will be to fixatif that and start the painting – but that was as far as I made it today. A decent start for being “unprepared for class” as I was. (I did have all my painting stuff with me – just not all the drawing stuff that I needed).

There is no shortage of cool little stuff in the studio. These were kind of tempting, but not what I was looking for to start with today: Maybe they will show up in the next still life.

I have a little down time to do some big-people stuff and then back to class tonight for figure drawing.

Posted in Art, drawing, painting
Tags: charcoal, drawing, painting, preparing canvas, still life, underpainting

Sugar Skulls, Dead Bird(s), Wolves and Roses

•September 24, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Some of the things that I have been up to this week.

Frank came in and had his first session on this one: He sat way better than he told me he was going to and we finished everything that I had planned to do that day. I think if I would have told him I was planning more he could have sat for longer. If he can sit this well on the next sessions we should be finished in 3 or 4 sits no problem.
You can see the stencil in these photos for where the full piece will sit when it is finished. I used the Silverback fresh in the roses and the Zombie in the leaves.

This week I had a second session on a good friend who told me I could post the photos if I left his name out. I have been making tattoos on him since around 1995. He drives a truck now so we don’t see each other that often – but I always look forward to his visits. This time he was in town for a little while so we actually had time for two sessions. Unfortunately we didn’t complete everything that we would have liked to. I am hoping that will mean he will have an excuse to head this way again sooner – but I may have to wait another year before I get to finish this one up. The piece on the front of his thigh was done by a wonderful artist who used to work in this area under the name “Bare”. I have lost touch with him over the years but he helped me out a great deal in my early years and I will never forget him. Wherever you are Bare – Thank you!

Every time my truck driving friend comes to get tattooed he brings me flowers. The joke is that he wants to butter me up so I don’t hurt him as much – this time I remembered to get some photos of them. Here are a few of them:

Sarah has also been coming to town to get tattoos from me for a very long time. I didn’t ask her when she was here – but I am thinking that I made some tattoos for her when we were still in the old shop so that would have had to be pre-1995. Yep, I’m feeling old today. This time (and several other times as well) Sarah has brought her daughter Korrine with her to get some work also.

Sarah went first this time and we put a sugar skull under her arm as another piece towards what will eventually be a full sleeve. After Sarah, Korrine had these two sparrows put on the back of her arms: The live song sparrow was made with Silverback Fresh and this key was made with the Zombie. On the other side the theme was reversed and the bird was made with the Zombie and the locket was Made with the Fresh.

Korrine spent the time while her mom was getting tattooed making these wonderful bracelets out of recycled materials. I forgot to take close up photos of them this time, but you can kind of see some of the ones that she has on in the last photo. Joey and I will be rounding up more materials for her when she comes to town next.

Today I have the day off to attend a wedding – so no more tattoo photos from me until next week. Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Posted in tattoo
Tags: Mother tattoo, roses, skull, sparrows, Sugar Skull, tattoo, tattoos, wolf, wolves

The Coffee Tree

•September 21, 2011 • Leave a Comment

One of our shops has really high ceilings so I have some space for a little bit larger plant then most people do.

Last week I received this note from one of my friends:

Back in the late 1970’s, my grandmother went to Africa. She passed a coffee tree there, picked a couple beans, wrapped them in a paper towel, and put them in her coat pocket. After getting home, she forgot all about them and washed the jacket, and then, the next time she wore it, there was a stain on the pocket that looked like something had bled through. She remembered the coffee beans, reached in, and found they had sprouted. She planted them, and for the last 30 years there are two really awesome coffee trees that have grown to be about 6 ft tall, each one produces enough beans for about 1 cup of coffee, but it’s a damn cool plant to have.

She died earlier this summer, and we have finally sold the house (hopefully!!), and there is one tree still left on the back porch. No one in the family has a ceiling tall enough to accommodate the tree. It’s getting really cold at night and I’m afraid it’s gonna die if we don’t find someone to take it. When I was in Greece, I noticed you watering the plants, and the one tree that was huge, and hit me, you’d be perfect to adopt this tree. 🙂 Would you like to have it for one of the shops? Paul would need to use the truck to pick it up, cause it’s damn big.

My husband agreed to help me pick up the coffee tree. There is no way that I could leave something like that out in the cold to die. We went Sunday to meet our friend and pick up the tree.

It was not in good shape.

After the drive to the shop it looked even worse.

When I came into the shop on Tuesday I had resolved that if it was going to live I was going to need to prune all of the REALLY dead stuff off and leave anything that looked like it might revive itself.

This is what it looked like before the trimming:

And this is what was left after I trimmed (as carefully as I could):

So if anyone has any helpful suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated. I would hate to see something with a history like this one has not make it.

If it doesn’t there are a few sprouts at the base that might be able to make it. So hopefully one way or the other the story and the tree will live on.

Posted in Garden
Tags: coffee, houseplant, tree

Figure Drawing Class – September 19th, 2011

•September 20, 2011 • Leave a Comment

So back to figure drawing class yesterday. Next week I will start a painting class there as well… so we’ll have to see how it works out going to two classes every Monday. Hopefully I can keep on track with it for the duration of the class.

My apologies for the quality of the photos… apparently my camera was having difficulty focusing this morning (don’t we all in the morning?).

We had a very small class yesterday. I think the smallest that we have had since I started going. After the first half hour a few more students trickled in and about an hour in “that guy” came in and sat down right next to me.

Who is that guy? Well, I normally call him (and the others like him) the Moaners…. but really, that’s not true. They are more bitchers than they are moaners. They talk to themselves and bitch. They talk about how hard this is, how much they suck at it or what is wrong (with the model, the lighting, the music, etc.,).

I have to admit that my immediate reaction when one of these people is near enough to me to hear them VERY clearly is to want to kick them in the teeth. Now admittedly, that’s an overreaction…. and I’ve never actually acted on it (or told one of them that I wanted to). But for some reason it REALLY bothers me when these people are nearby.

Yesterday I figured out why.

Now I know that whenever my peace is disturbed, that there is a fear involved. So what is it? What is the fear that this triggers? Why does it hit such a nerve?

Because these people say out loud the things that go through most of our heads. “I suck.” I’m never going to be any good at this.” “It’s ______’s fault that I can’t do this.”
The underlying fear is that we will never get good at it – and so if we listen to the fears… then there is no point in trying. It’s goal is to stop us in our tracks. To effectively disable us from moving forward. It takes someone with a Very Expensive Degree to be able to explain why we do this to ourselves, so I am not going to try.

For me the point is to avoid listening to it. My Critics Committee runs non-stop in my head and would have me sitting in a dark corner afraid to leave the house if I completely succumb to it.
That little nagging voice in the back of my head says things to me that I would smack any live person for saying to me. I would never tolerate that kind of abuse from anyone else…. yet I regularly subject myself to it.

Sometimes I can harness it and it will drive me forward.

Sometimes I see it as my greatest enemy and I fight it tooth and nail.

If I give in to it, then I will have nothing and it will be right. Screw that!

So if you have your own Critics Committee trying to destroy your hopes and dreams…. please know that you are not alone. We all listen to them more than we should. I don’t know anyone who is completely immune to their own fears… we will probably never be completely free of them, but we can learn to rise above them.

If you are an artist, a musician, a mom, a taxi driver or any other variety of human… know that we are ALL a work in progress. No one expects you to be perfect all of the time except you.

Each day, each creation, each project, each moment can be a step in the right direction. Some times we will falter and step backwards…. but that’s okay. Dust yourself off. Move on to the next project. Learn what you can and do it better next time.

You are writing the story of your life. If you write “I suck” on every page… it will become true eventually.

Just go be you. No one else can do that as well as you can.

Maybe I will be able to say that to “That Guy” next time he comes into class.

Posted in Art, drawing, introspection, Sketchbook, Uncategorized
Tags: class, drawing, figure

Frank’s “Sugar” Skull

•September 19, 2011 • Leave a Comment

I had posted the drawing that I had done for this tattoo a little while back. At the time that I had drawn it I had no tracing for his rib area and had done the design just on a good shape for the ribs. Turns out that the existing tattoo on the other rib panel is basically backwards to how I had drawn mine. So for grins and giggles (and to make some changes to other aspects of the drawing as well) I redrew Frank’s skull.

He is supposed to start this on Wednesday, but has warned me that he doesn’t want to sit for very long sessions… so I will post photos either when it is finished or enough of it is finished to tell what is going on.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

The gold tones are the lights in the room reflecting off of the graphite. Parts of this were done with black and grey colored pencils and some of it was done with “normal” graphite pencils.

Posted in Art, drawing, tattoo
Tags: black and grey, drawing, ribs, skull, sugar, tattoo

Some of this weekend’s projects

•September 13, 2011 • Leave a Comment

So in keeping with my belief that everything happens for a reason. One of my clients for last week had to cancel her appointment. Which worked out great for me because I have been having trouble decided exactly what direction I want to go with the drawing and this gives me more time to play with it.

Meghan sent me these two images as starting points specifically telling me not to feel limited by them: I really loved both of these, but figured the more upright positioning in the blue one would work better for a calf. I also really really like the moon following the curve of the bow. With that in mind I worked this up: There are a lot of things that I really really like about this one (and a few things that still need some work) but decided that it just would not fit well at all on a calf. The bow would curve to the front of the shin and look terribly awkward. I also think that this is too much too small detail for a leg piece. Unless someone is down on the floor crawling around they are never going to be able to see everything that is going on and it will just look cluttered. Would work better on an arm or back. So to go a completely different direction I came up with this: My biggest concern with this one was that it didn’t read well enough as Diana. Also I am concerned again that the bow will curve too much to the front of the leg. So I posted it to an online forum that I am involved in and got some great feedback on things that I can change and add to it. Very excited and looking forward to finishing up the drawing and then getting to start the tattoo next month.

Monday I was able to make it back to figure drawing class. I am so glad that I have made a habit of this and have decided definitely that I am going to take the painting class there Monday mornings as well starting the end of September. I decided that the painting of Joe’s dog is as finished as I want to take it from the reference that I had. While I feel like it should have more depth to it in some places – overall I am pretty happy with it so I went ahead and signed it. Just waiting to dry and go to it’s new home.

I’m working on a few cool projects so I should have more interesting stuff for y’all soon.

Posted in Art, drawing, painting, Sketchbook, tattoo
Tags: Diana, dog painting, figure drawing, Goddess, tattoo, tattoo drawings

Progression of a design – Praying Hands, Cross & Rosary

•September 10, 2011 • 3 Comments

Mitchell turned 18 this year and had been wanting this tattoo for a very long time.

This is the reference photo that he brought me:

He said that it didn’t have to be as dark, that it was okay to make the cross more dimensional and that he wanted the rosary to go around his forearm somehow. I know that this is one of those designs that has been done a lot (and done poorly a lot) and I wanted to try and do something nice for him.

First step was to go online and get a nice copy of the original Albrecht Durer version of the praying hands. They have been copied and redone so many times, that I figured best to try and start from the reference source.

Next was what to do with the rosary. Since this was going on a guy, I wanted to avoid the straight around the limb look that winds up looking too much like a bracelet. I found a nice high resolution image of a real rosary to work off of. I personally prefer the rose beads on the rosaries, but again, for a guy I didn’t think that he would appreciate having 50 plus tiny roses on his arm.

I didn’t know how receptive he was going to be to so much of the tattoo being rosary, so I stenciled them up separately so that I could adjust the size once he got here. As it turned out he was fine with leaving them larger (yeah!)

Some very basic research resulting in a much better tattoo than I would have wound up with if I tried to work exclusively off of the reference that he had sent me. Mitchell sat fantastically well for his first tattoo and got this done in one sit. The only breaks that we took were at my request.

Here are some photos of the end result:

This is actually a good example of photos taken in natural and artificial light and how much difference that makes.

Happy Birthday Mitch!!!

OOOPS! Almost forgot. Of course this was done with Silverback Ink including the new XXX

Posted in tattoo, White Tiger Tattoo
Tags: cross, praying hands, rosary, Silverback, tattoo

Playing with watercolors

•September 5, 2011 • 2 Comments

A group that I am involved in has been posting step by step tutorials. One of the members had put together a nice one on how she works with traditional tattoo watercolors. It was informative and looked like fun so it inspired me to take yet another bash at watercolors.

I will leave out the step by step information and just put the pictures up here. If you have any questions let me know.

I had fun, but don’t have any plans at all to do anything else with watercolors for a while. Antiquing the paper was by far the best part.

At this point in the process I got frustrated with waiting for the layers of tea to dry. It was late and so I didn’t want to take a hair dryer to it and wake anyone else up in the house. Jessie told me if I was bored, I should draw on her for a while… so we went and watched “Better Off Dead”, I drew on her and waited until morning to get back to the watercolors.

Nice and dry and ready to experiment with:

Posted in Art, painting
Tags: jackalope, marker tattoos, tea, temporary, watercolor

Step by Step 3D Nipple Tattoo (Areola Repigmentation)

•September 3, 2011 • 11 Comments

About a year ago I posted some pictures of Thom volunteering to have a nipple put on his arm. I had done the tattoo and the photographs for use in the book that I am putting together on the reconstructive tattooing.

I’m still plugging away at the book. I’m not sure if I will be able to use these photos in the publication and so many people have questions about these tattoos and this work that I figured better to post them then to leave them to sit idly away on the forgotten recesses of my hard drive. (How was that for a run on sentence… I am sure there is not one of my English teachers who would believe anyone would have an interest in wading through any book I ever put out)

The original post on Thom is HERE

More information on the medical tattooing that I do can be found HERE

If you have any other questions, please let me know.