What happens when the boyfriend leaves town?

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I spend a lot of time listening to Sunn O))) and painting. I have a few things to share with you all!

First, I got my knuckles tattooed by the talented Jared Hunter of Anatomy Tattoo and I’m SUPER stoked on them. Wouldn’t you be?

I also had the pleasure of tattooing some of the summer flash from Melanie, Nick’s and my summer flash day on Jared’s lovely lady companion, Tashina. She got my two favorite things from my flash sheet: the hot dog with traditional butterfly wings and the satanic olive.

I’ve also been painting A TON, as mentioned before. My boyfriend Rob is on a short California tour with his awesome band The Shivas, so I’ve been hanging out with lots of lady friends and painting and painting and painting! I’m excited to show some of these off. Originals are for sale as always (once I get scans of them) and of course I’d LOVE to morph any of these into tattoos.

I love the movie Metropolis. Fritz Lang is a genius.

 

I taught my friend Alice to paint with liquid acrylics by making two copies of this rose on watercolor paper. This is the one I painted while we hung out! Not even two years ago Jared (of the above knuckle tattoos!) taught me to do this the exact same way- starting with roses – and it made me feel so nostalgic and happy to see the progress I’ve made (though I still have long way to go yet).

Last but not least, the scan of this is totally horrible and cuts off the bottom of the pearl necklace (which makes me really sad because I’m super proud of it), but this is the painting I just finished for Icon’s shop postcard. So unlike things I do on the regular and so fun. Anyone want a fierce wolf tattoo? Because I’m really excited about that fierce wolf.

Owl cover-up finished!

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Remember the cover-up I started on the lovely Becky a few weeks ago? I finished it today! I’m so in love with it and she was such a delight to work with. She also sat through a totally egregious amount of mechanical failure today. What the hell, machines/tubes/power supply cords? Thanks for being so easygoing, Becky! No thanks to you, equipment! As if the fact that it’s really hot and we don’t have A/C doesn’t suck enough.

Anyway, the up-side is that I got to work with really lovely people this week, and I got to do rad tattoos. If only the weather and my pieces-parts would behave. It does bear mentioning that I am probably the only person in Portland who thinks this constitutes the weather not behaving, just so we’re all clear.

So fun. I am actually sorry this tattoo is finished. I’ve had so much fun with it!

Surprise fun for the week!

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Sometimes, doing this job, I get a little extra lucky. Thursday was one of those days. A totally delightful fellow walked in and asked for a giant traditional eagle on his shin, and let me tell you! I was so excited that Melanie passed him to me! I love traditional tattoos so much and don’t get a chance to execute them half as much as I’d like. If you are thinking of getting one, and wondering who’d be stoked, I WANT YOU TO KNOW I WOULD BE STOKED.

Riley was on a road trip from Salt Lake with his lovely wife. Here is the souvenir he’ll be taking home (and everywhere else he goes!):

 

 

For some reason Widmer Bros. is having Oktoberfest down the street. If you aren’t totally clear, IT’S SEPTEMBER. Unlike 5 o’clock, I am pretty sure it’s not always October somewhere in the world.

Also, tonight is my friend Betty Marie’s art show opening at Leisure Public House here in Portland! Please come if you aren’t too busy seeing bands, going to the park, going camping, etc.

Everything is fun!

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This week has been so crazy! My parents were in town until Tuesday, which was SO wonderful and I miss them already, and then the rest of the week has been a blur of drawing, doctor’s appointments (don’t worry, not mine, and everyone is fine), and tattooing. I’m happy to have a day off but I’ve done some seriously fun tattoos this week. Check out a few snapshots:

 

Unfortunately, I forgot my DSLR at work literally all week, so we’re stuck with iPhone pictures of everything I did. Bummer! But this is Hannah’s little dutch girl running through daffodils. It was so much fun to draw, even more fun to tattoo, and Hannah sat like a total champ for all of it in one sitting. She was headed to Corvallis to start working on her second degree here in the next few weeks, so it was a little bit now-or-never. I had such fun chatting with her while working on this, and I’m so grateful Alena sent her my way for this tattoo!

 

This is a hell of a bad picture. Sorry, world. It’s just this tattoo was so fun to do I have to post something! Kelly wanted a ladybug taking off, “more bug than lady,” which I could totally get excited about. I think ladybugs are awesome, but they are way cooler when you can see their buggy bodies and feelers and wings and everything. She is also a fellow band nerd, which is awesome! I had so much fun hanging out with her and Rachel while doing this tattoo.

 

And last but definitely not least, I tattooed Ryan’s loon yesterday. He is always such a pleasure to work with, and just as with his last idea, I was so jazzed about his concept for this one. It went super smoothly and we’ll be doing color in just three and a half weeks! I can’t wait.

 

And now, today is a day off! I’m going to get brunch at Broder with my favorite guy and do some drawing and hopefully even go outside for a protracted length of time. How about that!

Cover-ups, birds, etc.

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I’ve had some fun projects lately. I’m excited to share them with you!

First, I got another painting-inspired walk-in the other evening, albeit more modern this time. First, Ben came in and set up an appointment with the lovely and talented Niki, and then his wife Sam decided she wanted to get tattooed, too! They were from Kansas City, a place I’ve never been but from whence I’ve inherited a few friends, and it was so nice to be a part of their Portland experience. Sam wanted a tattoo of a pretty stylized little bluebird, and I explained to her that the body will mostly turn into a blue color wash over time but she was still excited about the tattoo, so we charged on ahead. I think it came out a lovely little bird:

The next day, I was so lucky as to be working on yet another cover-up. I love doing these. They’re so gratifying – taking something that someone has lived with and disliked, and turning it into something really beautiful and new and more illustrative of the person’s adult personality. Usually it’s teenager tattoos that get covered. I love to be a part of someone’s process, and I am with every tattoo I do, but it’s so much more the focus with a cover-up. They really are one of my favorite things. Obviously, it’ll still be a little muddy until we get the color in there, but here’s the outline and shading on Becky’s owl:

I’m so happy to be working on this tattoo, and Becky’s so awesome to work with! I’m really excited about the collaboration process we went through, and excited about her suggestion of pinecones, and so excited about the way those little pinecones curve around her shoulder. I’m also in love with those big bold roses! More of those, I think. I’ll be sure to post color photos as soon as I have them.

My family’s also been in town and I’ll be sure to post a few pictures from that as soon as I get them from my stepdad.

THAT’S OWL FOR NOW. Oh man, I’m so funny.

I’d like to reiterate:

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I have the best job in the world.

Mark and Mikola wandered into Icon a few Saturdays ago and I was lucky enough to get the job of doing a reworking-to-be-tattooable of a Hieronymus Bosch painting (actually a composite of two) on his arm. They are SO lovely, and were such fun to work with, and what a fun tattoo idea in the first place!

We did the peasants from this painting:

And the fish from this one, because how can you resist this guy:

And turned it into this:

Photograph by Mikola Accuardi

Seriously, this was so much fun. One of the best things about my job is getting to collaborate with so many other awesome people out there in the world! I love that other people are constantly a part of my creative process. I’m a big believer in discourse, idea trade, and the idea that from collaboration and cooperation come something greater than each individual contributor, and I love that my job constantly reminds me of this.

I was also chastised by my friend Paul for not posting a photo of the moose tattoo I referenced earlier, so here he is:

I started this guy in my apprenticeship, and Ryan is so fun to work with, too! He’s a mountain climber (whoa.) and these are all mountains he’s personally summitted. Pictured are, from top, Three-Fingered Jack, Mt. Hood, and Mt. St. Helens. How cool is that?

a sweet story

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Sorry for the shoddy photo quality; my phone seems to have some kind of problem that prevents it from EVER FOCUSING ON ANYTHING. iPhone users, know anything about this…?

 

Now then. I did this sweet locket on Allison the other day. Mary Ann and Robert were her grandparents; they passed away this spring within a month of each other. They were married 50 years. What a romantic thing that is. It was so fun to tattoo and I’m really pleased with the outcome – so fun to work in black and grey but still stay pretty traditional! I don’t get to do that as much and I really enjoyed it. Love doing that clean, sharp, traditional lettering, too.

Later in the week (read: when I get it together and find one of my camera cords, which are all currently MIA from my recent move) I’ll post pictures of the huge cover-up I started on Becky. I’m psyched to work on it again as soon as we can!

photos, summer 2011 so far

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Also, a quick peek at what I’ve been working on lately:

 

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A quick cover of a little old celtic knot with a lovely artichoke (my spirit vegetable!!). Progress on Jon’s elephant. A summer flash day (please note: HOT DOG BUTTERFLY). Another cover of a wee old tattoo with a lovely geometric flower. A draft of a loon tattoo I’m doing on the first on Ryan, keeper of the rad moose tattoo I did awhile back and mountain-climber extraordinaire. Epic cover-up on amazing lady Misty, bringer of pizza, marathon sitter when getting tattooed, and marathon runner in the real world.

 

It’s good, guys. I’m having fun.

Let’s try this again.

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So, I’ve been blogging for years, but always about food. I love food! I love writing! I studied the latter in college! That means I totally will do it all the time on the regular, right?

Turns out I hate keeping food blogs.

Good news is, I make tattoos for a living these days, and it’s pretty much the best job ever. Also, taking a picture of someone’s new tattoo right after you make it is something everyone can be excited about, instead of something that keeps everyone from devouring a delicious feast until it’s lukewarm and riddled with the taste of impatience. Additionally, I’m a terrible photographer (okay, not terrible, but not gifted) and it turns out taking pictures of food that don’t look blurry, slimy, greasy, just plain unappetizing, or like a giant foodpile is really hard!

So here we go. I’m going to try to track progress, think more intentionally about how stupidly awesome my job is, and keep everyone else abreast of my tattooing life. I might even toss a recipe out there once in awhile. But no promises on any photos of food.