ok, ok, its true

im food powered. its a little bit of math but if you can hang with me ill try to explane.

1. get some good referance



2. add a smoked pulled pork sandwich the size of your head, and a side of red potato salad.



3. result, a first rough draft line drawing!



4. reward yourself with some crab wontons with blackberry sauce!



repeat and watch the progress before your eyes!

And so it begins...

And in 1,2,3 I go from barely dust to just barely 4 inches!

Almost December

So many stinkin blogs. Im looking forward to posting once a week not once a day.
Watched jurasic park, the walking dead, Sherlock Holmes and now 'dragon wars'.

Other the. That just sat around drawing and eatin turkey sandwiches all day. Lol
I'd like another day off but my buddie driving up tomorrow has a hard time getting any other day off so I guess I'll be at the shop tomorrow for a few hours to start his dr teeth tattoo.

Other then that just thinking about saving up a fund for my next trip to Powell books haha.

But there's only so many hours in the day.

So much to do, not enough brain to do it.

One of the down sides of putting so much thought and time into my tattoos is trying to find the time and brain to do it.

Figuring out your own individual work flow helps a lot in keeping the work load manageable. If I had to start a sleeve everyday I'd probably have a melt down.

Giving myself time between projects keeps it manageable, and with color studies and all the prep you don't really need to think about it past the first sitting making it a lot less stessing to tattoo. You can just put your head down a d work, focusing just on technique alone. It's a whole lot of work but in the end it makes things easier and your end result better.

I can see why some people work in one set style and genre. Though for me I think it'd feel repetitive I can see the advantages.

Right now I'm currently working on prep work for the following:
A Japanese 3/4 sleeve of a snake and flowers
A bio mech full sleeve
A eroupean/ sculpture/ Victorian referenced full sleeve
A dr. Teeth and the electric mayhem half sleeve
A good/ evil /zombie bible referenced half sleeve
A fancy elaborate lettering half a forearm

And that's just stuff I'm trying to conquer right now. That's easily 4-5 totally different styles or influences to draw pieces I love from.

My brain just may melt

Sleepy sleepy

So tired.
This is some of my drawings for work from the last 2 weeks. Some are pieces in progress some are waiting to be started. All of them drained me. I put a lot of thought into my tattoos and I still thunk it's not enough.

A jackal? It's a jackal! A jackal?!

This is the only picture I took all day!

Had a wonderful thanksgiving. I'm super thankful for my families health, the people that I've been lucky enough to have in my life, and the opportunities afforded to me.

I'm sure Sarahs blog will have more photos and cover the gaps in the day that my naps covered, you can find her blog on the side bar as 'sarah baker doing crafty things' if I recall correctly.

She and my mom made some amazing pumpkin cinnamon rolls from tashas page, also on the side bar I think labeled 'flour mayhem'

So. Dang. Good.

Other then that just a chill day with Sarah, my parents, my sister & her bf, soooo much food and a roaring fire.

All this tasty food made me wish Ian could be here to enjoy it. I thought about leaving some at his headstone but between him loving the earth & prolly wouldn't want even a napkin floating around and the thought that he wouldn't want any of that love filled food to go to 'waist'  I decided to just keep him in mind/ heart instead.

I had a pretty negative energy filled week and I really need to pull myself back on track. It's so easy to Lise focus and let the non sense cloud your thoughts.

Any how, I'm off to more family, food & fire.

Be excellent to one another ;)

Pre turkey day :)

I didn't even have to use my AK, today was a good day :)







BBQ, star treck, my girl, good times :)

Almost turkey day :)

The heat works again
The Internet does not
Sarah is here :)

Internet famous!

Went and saw some friends in Lincoln today, I'm super exhausted now after 400 miles of driving today.

I saw bea, bob, breen, Casey, matt and raina. That's bob above becoming Internet famous while eating a burrito. You can see me devouring mine zombie like over on bea/zombea's tumblr over on the side bar.

Time for bed!

This music award show is aw.... Wait for it

Ful! Awful. Good god no wonder I don't listen to the radio. This shits awful, and to top it 90% of the 'performers' are dancing around out of breath to a shitty recording of there song. Ugh fail

sooo beat.

got started on this tattoo today. its eventualy going to be a full knee to toes leg sleeve but we are focusing on this half first.

as you see above i did a breif color study for it, but first had to come the line drawing.



i referanced quite a few people, and it might be noticable. but i dont realy care. its a cool tattoo.



we lined the whole thing today, did all the black, and colored in this one flower.
it covers something like 55-60% of her calf pretty solid. when i dont have a big head ache ill create a wrap around photo for you to check out. but this is all i got for now.

now off to a freeezing drive home and a couple very wanted days off :)

well humph

hopefully photobucket has quit being lame and my photos work. in which case above you will see an image of Benten aka Benzaiten aka sarasvati.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraswati

i saw this tattoo today @ http://bunkertattoo.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/a-k-a-benten/



I thought it was pretty snazy so i went looking for more info on her, typing in Sarasvati you get tons and tons of cool images like the one heading this post and if you click the link to wikipedia it fills you in a bit more as well as linking you to more information about her in japanese culture as well as indian.

After hunting around for all of that i took a break and headed over for lunch at the house of Q. www.yourhouseofQ.com im pretty sure is correct. you can also find them on facebook under your house of Q i think. they've put down some permanent roots and are serving out some awesome Q

today i saw this!



yeah. thats right.
a fork, spoon, nife despensor.
im preety sure i need one of these in my life. never again will i need to wash a fork. haha.

and it spins!

wanting to stay productive on my friday i worked on the line drawing for tomorrows tattoo, and did a bit of a color study for it. mums always make me go cross eyed so i figured it was a good idea.



here's your sneak peak of that, hopefully ill have lots to show you tomorrow!

brrrrrr

this is what my fingers feel like lol.

got my collar bone tattooed today, it wasnt to shabby. def beter then expeted. but the furnace totaly crapped out yesterday, as confirmed this afternoon, so it is in fact coooold up in this place :S thankfully the landlord brought us over some little room heaters to tide us over in the mean time. hopefully they get it sorted out before its cold fridgid :S

i havnt got a big day tomorrow so hopefully ill get some back logged photos and what not up :)

brrrrr

its getting colder for sure, but with out the preciptation hanging in the air its not so sharp. well, not yet anyways.

another busy day at the shop, set this little table up in my room and am pretty happy with it. i need to go buy a dozen or so frames for things and some candels that are big enough to leave lit all days with out worring about them dripping all over though.

that being said i realy need to start taking more pictures again, even though im busy. all text blogs when i havnt realy got much to say and am just trying to make a blog a day can get pretty boring. pictures are at least interesting to look at...i think.

any how, getting tattooed tomorrow trying to finish a piece in progress. im looking forward to having it done, and looking forward to non of this tattoo being on my sternum or neck. but its still going to being a tattoo, and im still going to sleep all awkward and crappy for a while after. such is life.

hopefully in th enext few days ill have a blog worth posting.

Worst super hero names ever.

Man, time just flys lately. Sit down, look up and it's dark already!

Any how today went pretty well. Actually in retrospect it was a great day. Some times I forget how much better my days are then a lot of peoples.

This morning I loaded up a new end table for my room with a cool marble top and headed to the shop. Got there early enough to unload and set it up and start cleaning for the day when the rest of the shop rolled in. Our friends at the House of Q opened there first permanent location today so we all decided to close the doors for a quick BBQ break.

On our way out the door I noticed my best friend Audi and her partner Cameron walking down the sidewalk. They were in town to get tattooed, not to put off some good Q they joined the trip. Well, cam did, audi had some running around to do.

The BBQ was awesome and when we returned to the shop I had some people come in looking for me and set up a full day of getting tattooed later on. Really love getting the walk in clientele up.

Any how I worked on Cam's tattoo for a few hours and then Audi's piece in progress. Having a good time in general and enjoying seeing each other. Something we don't get to do all that often between distance and generally busy schedules.

And now I'm watching how I met your mother, sketching fashion line ideas and organizing some more items to bring into the shop tomorrow. 

Yeah. My jobs pretty right ;)

If I am not your family. Stop calling me bro

Tired already, not much going on today. Took my moron dogs for a walk, spread a whole lot of gravel in the driveway to fill low spots before winter comes. Went to dinner with Charles and now I'm back home. 

Didn't get any reading done, I'll hopefully do it tonight later on. And I didn't get any sketching done, that'll prolly have to wait till another day though. I also need to hunt for some color studies for some tattoos I'm working on tomorrow that I started a while back. Pretty stoked on working on those.

Having clients like them come in makes life a lot easier. People are definitely the best and worse part of the job. Thankfully the good ones tend to out number the bad ones :) 

The road is long and the light is still far

Been a good day. Some cooking, some video games, and lots of reading.  For sure a day were I learned just enough to realize I've got a lot more to learn.

I am, taking a chance. Walking with my laces loose

http://printsofjapan.wordpress.com/

Printsofjapan.com

http://jamesthen.com/

Bushido: legacies of the Japanese tattoo by takahiro kitamura

Stuff I'm reading about on my days off this week. As well as trying to find more info on edo and 'images of the floating world' period Japanese art/ wood blocks

It's been super interesting so far, I'm really enjoying finding so much information. Answers to questions that I had no idea that I'd been looking for in the wrong places for years!

I'll keep you updated :)

Working smarter not harder

Sharper knives require less force.

Tools that are in tune make work a lot less work and a lot more enjoyable.

I've been thinking that some guided study would benifit my being. Regaurdless of wether it's studying piano, oil painting, jujutsu, yoga or bushido.
I I think I'd feel sharper and more productive. Being out of school for the first extended period in my life i realize how much I enjoy learning.

Anyhow here's a bit on bushido. You can google it for more if it strikes your fancy :)

"If a man does not investigate into the matter of Bushido daily, it will be difficult for him to die a brave and manly death. Thus, it is essential to engrave this business of the warrior into one's mind well."

Well I finally found what I'm looking for

Though the road's still long and the light is still far...


not much to talk about today.

just a lazy day of scribbling a few ideas, making appointments and staring into no where. tomorow however looks like i should be fairly busy, which is rad. ill almost always take fairly busy over stairing into space haha.

any how, when im not staring into space ive decided to start checking out more japanese wood block prints. this kind of goes back to my previous referance post, its just an angle that i hadnt thought of for some reason.

being a nerd about process im pretty amazed just looking at the blocks them selves.



not related at all today i realized that i realy enjoy meals that come in bowls :)



wether its hot and sour soup...



even just a bowl to dip in along my french dip..



as long as theres a bowl its prolly pretty good :)

If only..

Making the best of right now.

Keeping away from negative energy and thinking of the future are just part of the thought flow in my head. 

Tomorrow is never promised. 

If today's your last day would you be happy with what you did? You get home from whatever and wherever, lay down in bed. The light switches on in your mind that your never going to open your eyes again.

Why did you stay in that shitty job never getting your life in line so you could make some progress. Quit spending money you don't have just to rutt yourself firmly into your current place?

Why did you get so upset at that guy driving like an ass? And that person asking you so many questions on the phone.

Was it worth all the things you did?

You traded your last day of life for what you did today.

Everyone is different but I'd like to be able to say I tried my best, I tried to make peoples day as good as possible, I did not waste time being upset and negative.

Today was Ian's birthday. I went out this morning before work and put some flowers my mom and I picked on his grave marker were his head stone will be placed. It was a perfectly rainy, foggy, cold overcast day. Just like he'd like.

I picked up a friend who needed a ride to work. I drove a bit out of my way to try a new cafe to eat at. It looked pretty family owned, Ian always took joy in having a meal not only with friends but in eating food made with love. I think I'd have to agree that if it isn't healthier for your heart that it is for your soul.

Some girls came in towards late afternoon and I agreed to get them tattooed that evening. I gave them a good deal, tried to make it a good time and did my best on their tattoos. They were estatic and tipped me in little Debbie brownies.

I came home to a warm home made dinner and fresh cinnamon rolls on the counter.

I'd like to think I spent his day in a way he'd be happy to have shared.

The nights comes quick these days

What could I give when you've got all you need
And she looks at me like all I want's a little free
Every time I look at you it makes me see
That it's alright, yeah it's alright
We'll get away be in love we can make it better
All I need's a little time for us to get together
Happiness is just a step away
When it's alright, yeah it's alright

There's a picture hanging in the back of my head...

Day off numero 2:

surprisingly I've been having a good couple of relaxing days doing a whole lot of nothing. Generally I haven't been fairing so well at the 'relaxing days of nothing' I don't actually have anything to do in my days off lately and though id like to just relax all the further i get is antsy. like the set on of cabin fever after only a few moments. i think this is in part to my change of days off going from tues/weds to sun/mon. the days feel so different, and my weeks go by so differently starting them on the slow days of the week instead of ending them on the slow days. Also add to the fact that I'm generally elbows deep in some series of projects and i hav'nt really anything in the works right now. I'd set up to start sewing and what have you but forgot that my machines were whipped out in the flood and the move to the new shop costing so much i haven't been able to afford to find replacements.

Either way they've been nice, maybe its the change of setting that helps? today I headed down to the old market area and wandered into some shops and stores that i haven't been into before or at least in a very long time for some of them. partially because i haven't really anything better to do. partially to make a mental list of what is available were. I'm always keeping my eye out for some trinket, or christmas gift. hating malls this is about the only way im going to find things, and being a man i want to get in there buy my stuff and leave. more so when there are x-mas sized crowds around. so i always try to remember were things are in advance.

while i was wandering around i took a minute to stop into drastic plastic and see my best friend ever Audi :) we live a bit further apart then we normally do and we're both super busy all the time so we don't actually see each other all that much anymore so i try to pop in when i can to see her. if you knew some one that awesome you would to!



wandering alley's i found this wall, i thought it was interesting to see all the contrast. the red windows, pipes and vines against the building. the round windows and curving vines along with square windows and angular pipping. any how, thought it was worth a cell phone pic at the least.


after doing all the wandering i could manage i headed back to sarahs to check out some food blogs and checked into http://twentysomethingandstarving.com/ a blog my friend Diana had recomended. full of tasty things :)

i think this week ill try to cook some of the things on that blog and pack them as lunches for the week, its money saving and something fun and creative to do.

on the creative side I've been thinking up more ways to get my creative friends together and thought maybe a every other month or so get together were we get together and draw/ paint/ sketch together. I could maybe set up a bunch of tables/ easles in my basement and studio for us to sit around. we could watch movies and have a meal. it sounds like fun and a little more managable for those friends further way then a weekly ordeal. I'll put it out there and see what comes of it i suppose.

guess that's about it for today. I'm going to have dinner and head north tonight so i can get up bright and early to pay bills in the morning :S

Am I finding my voice, or just singing a song?

Spent my day off today at Sarahs place lounging on the couch watching 'batman begins' on repeat and reading blogs. all in all, not a bad way to waste a day :)

One of the new ones I found, that i ended up spending a considerable amount of time reading was http://analogweatherreport.blogspot.com/

From what i gather it was the shop page but is now primarily Adrian Lee's blog. I always enjoy reading travel blogs, project blogs,pix of food blogs and also those about the progress of large tattoos. this one has them all! I've always enjoyed the books that come from this group of artists so i suppose it was a bit of a given that I'd like this.

the new books coming out appears to be all body suits, with the previous being all sleeves. below is a video of them hanging the prints of the photos in the book in time lapse for a gallery showing. thought it was kinda cool :)



im posting this from Sarahs 'right click free' computer so that explains the massive lack of photos in this post. I'm sure my overly photo heavy-ness will return in the near future, as well as some tattoo photos from hopefully some pretty neat bigger works in progress i will be starting on in the next little while.

all in a days work...

So i try to make every tattoo i do a tattoo that im excited about doing. it just makes the whole process so much easier when im working on my 6th hour of linework when im just super stoked about how its going to look.

while that may make it easier, getting to that point isnt all that easy sometimes.
example, i was brought this referance photo for a tattoo. now, its not all that bad but honestly ive seen this tattooed about a dozen times and i have never liked the results no matter how well the tattoo was done.



add to that he wants to make the hair even longer so it fills nearly half his upper arm with random hair filler and of course add some spider web back ground. sigh.

try one:



i did finish the head band/ scarf on this simply for the fact that i knew i wouldnt enjoy tattooing it. i dig skull tattoos but i put so much effort into the shapes and textures that adding paint on top of it is hard to do and feel like it looks right.

onto try two:



i realy liked the hair on this one as well as the designs on the face. i tried to create a rendering more reliant on the linework this time. however the clients a 5 foot nothings skinny mexican kid so the composition just wasnt going to fit on his shoulder and look right no matter how far i shrunk it down.

so try three for the day:



i ended up putting the 'spider web' into the scarf design and tried to further push the simplicity factor/ line structure on the skull to make it readable with face paint on it etc. to balance that out i bumped up the amount of detail in everything else. a ton of attention to line weight and color contrasts and i think this may be our winner. ive got a few days until the tattoo needs to be started so ive got time to think and redraw a few more times to something im excited about. but i think this is preety close.






oh yeah, and REFRESH! :)

You know even strong man falls, and even the wise man has to learn...

Pretty cute huh? :)
Pretty slow day today but I came home to my aunt sue & uncle Greg which was nice. We went out for dinner and had a steak the size of a 4 year old.

Wish I had more to chat about but I'm pretty worn out & it's almost 12. So this is what ya get ;)

A hopefully productive day tomorrow and then I'm off to see Sarah on my days off :)

With you in your dreams...

Ian Michael White.

I've just come from Ian's funeral. To be honest it had to have been one of the most depressing things I've ever witnessed. Friends that have remained cold and matter of fact about death inside of there own family were on their knees sobbing.

I think that alone is testament of how amazing, and what a gift Ian was to everyone.

Ian was all the things that I talk about wanting to be, and that friends of mine strive towards. So loving, caring, grateful, honest, non judging not ever seeming to ever let any sort of negative thought pass into his mind. Always a smile, always happy, always full of love for everyone and everything. 

Endless patience and an awe for all that was the world and nature.

How amazing is it to have ever even met someone that fits this description so solidly, let alone to have him in your life shining onto yours. And to be able to say all this knowing that no one who had ever met him would disagree one bit.

Man....

Ian loved music, he loved nature, the northwest, things made with love, family, brutal cold weather, wind chimes and people.

Today standing in the cemetery, friends playing songs he loved on their guitars if the weather had been any colder it would have been unbearable. And as he was laid to rest into the ground the wind blew with such a force and the sound of wind chimes bounced over the hills. I've never felt such a forcefull wind feel so much like a hug in my entire life.

I've cried so hard my breath has been taken from me, I've bit my lip until I tasted blood trying to stop.

I feel that with him being gone we all need to let the negativity go and just love more. So that we might at least attempt to fill this massive hole he's left.

I don't really want to go onto anymore sad rambling, but you'll always be in my heart Ian. Even when it hurts this bad.

...I don't want you to cry and weep, oh
I want you to go on living your life
I'm not sleeping an endless sleep, oh
'Cause in your heart
You have all of our good times...

3/3 less depressing?

I've previously talked about the amount of prep time I was trying to put forth towards my tattoos. But what I failed to note is the amount of composition drafts and piles of reference used to even get to the point of starting on a final idea.

I have not only thousands of random photos, paintings and sketches I've found and kept for some reason. Some little thing that jumps out at me. Maybe the hue of a sunset, the filigree on an old sewing machine or knife.

But also tons of self produced reference. I talk to people at the studio very regularly about not googling "flower tattoo" but rather "flowers". Using some one elses tattoo as reference is using a starting point that has already been filtered threw some one elses mind, ideas, and skill. Start as fresh as you can!

I try to take that as far as I can as often as I can by creating my own reference material. All you tattoo people out there know when you see that sugar skull girl or that battle worn skull that Josh, and Nikko, and Nate and every body that's ripping there tattoo is using the exact same reference photo. Mike D. Touches on that a little in his keeping it real book/ DVD about trying to find your own fresh reference. It'll be worth all the effort when your joker tattoo doesn't blend in with all the others.

Any how I do this a few ways all of witch involve seeing your reference in real life. Wether I make a quick sketch, cell phone photo, or a purposely lit composed photo.

From flowers to rocks, seeing it first hand unlocks doors in your mind that a pic off the Internet just does not.

Examples that come to mind, when working on drawing koi I went out to catch a great big carp to look at and photo first hand. There are differences between a koi and a carp but it's close enough. Any how, moments after pulling it out of the water I saw so many little details that explained so much of what I'd seen in Japanese tattoos. Why in old tradition japanese tattoos does the koi have these weird W shaped scales behind the head? Because they do!

Example two, I was in NYC at the met a summer or two ago and came across there display of a Japanese garden complete with giant crazy looking rocks. I had always assumed much of the Japanese tattoo style was just that, stylized. But turns out in japan they actually have big crazy looking black rocks! So many little details and things seen in real life unlock answers to questions that would have taken  hours apon hours of sketching to figure out how to make it look right. There it is right in front of you! Things you'd never have even thought of!

My trips to the northwest reveal to me dozens of new bright and amazing flowers I'd never dreamed of existed. Now in my folder of amazing flowers to add to my compositions when you just can't bare to do your billionth tiger Lilly tattoo.

My final example explains my top photo. Skulls! I've drawn skulls for decades! Referencing other artists and piles of photos, and yet when my girl friend handed me a complete skull it was like a football stadium sized light went on in my head every time I twisted or turned it! It answered questions I didn't know I even had inside of 5 minutes of looking at it. Having it to turn, pose and light has become amazingly beneficial to my current work.

So take the easy road to awesome work and go take a walk with a camera, catch a fish, look at rocks!

2 for two

Sorry for such a lacking photo. Turns out my hipstimatic app is much like a real hipster in that neither likes to work that often.

Anyways, scenes like these always give me mixed feelings. As I wander aimlessly through random thrift and consignment shops I often wonder how this all ended up here. I can't help but think family members are selling lost loved ones things so they don't have to look at them walking around the house.

Sad.

So my point. I'm walking around these places and every time I find a booth like this I get super excited! I love love love old tools. Esp monkey wrenches, especially when there's tons of them!

Then I look around at this hard and time built collection and I see a little of that old man who put this together. 

I actually went to an exhibit at the Sheldon art gallery in Lincoln once to see what was new, and they had this room converted into an old shed with loads of shelves chocked full of tools and bolts etc. They had taken it apart from the old mans house and reconstructed it inside. It was amazing. It was like looking at memories of a person I'd never known.

Anyhow, I kinda think of that when I see this type of thing. No man just gets rid of all his tools. This man is gone, and his collection being given away for 75 cents a piece. 

It kinda feels like it's something that should be passed down. 

The only thing I took from my grandparents house after my PaPa passed was one old tool box. I actually use it and the tools, and I've always left the top tray full of everything that he left in it.

Maybe that's it? Maybe wandering around consignment stores hunting for old garage stuff I'm just looking for a memory.

A day at a time

I stole this pic from the blog of one of the artist from conspiracy inc. I don't recall which one. Guess you'll have to look threw them all to figure it out!

So I'm going to attempt posting everyday this month. Sarah's going to as well as part of some website/ win stuff thing, but I'm just trying to keep up with her for fun :)

So I'd say that a lot of them will be pretty light on photos, heck even light on words. But I'll try to make them worthwhile either way.

So let's get with it already!

What's new? What's going on?
Not to much is new other then the winter weather creeping in ever so sneaky. The shops grand opening seems to have gone well and business is picking up. I really owe my clientele quite a bit. Not only do they continue coming to me but often bring me there friends as well. This last week I scheduled a 3/4 sleeve for one of my clients and a half leg sleeve of awesomeness for one of her freinds!

With these pieces and some in progress work I'm very excited for the making of my new portfolio that should be done very early January. It'll be another hardbound book but that's about were the similarities end. Very excited, I'm sure I'll keep you updated. 

I'm currently trying to work on alot of larger Japanese work, I think I'm really starting to find my place in that niche. I'm excited to show people what I'm doing when these few pieces are finished. To contrast that I'm doing a few large borderline illustrative and one large very traditional japanese tattoos as well. 

Outside of work I'm trying to be preemptive about getting the winter time blues. I think my daily commute really contributes to my isolation, get up, drive to work, drive home, sleep, repeat.

I usually cure it with travel, and though I plan to be in Portland in December, it's just a bandaid. So I'm trying to come with some sort of social thing to do in sxc to make freinds/ hangout with friends. I'm thinking a weekly drawing club/night would be fun but most of my interested friends are in Omaha/ Lincoln so I'm not sure how well this idea will shape up. But it's trying?

The weather. The move. The commute. My friend Ian not waking up Friday night these are most def things that contribute to bumming me out.

I think that's probably enough for one night, gotta save something for the rest of the night right?