and thats how things get done....

So as is typical had a pretty chill tuesday. My friend Danny is getting tattooed tomorrow and after not having seen him for a looooong time we hung out for a minute this afternoon and pounded out some details for his tattoo.

so I figured id spend the afternoon working on that and taking photos along the way.



of course i had to fuel up, today i had some texas style chili from the house of Q. it was spicey! and very filling. should of had them put it on a bun its so thick but other then that perfect :)



alright so on the left you see our rough sketch i scribbled while talking about ideas, as well as a little reference for the refined version.



flash forward we have a line drawing!



a quick sharpie trace onto some water color paper for further development. This is going to be a very black heavy tattoo as ive realy been into that lately and as such i need to think about shading and layout a bit more than if i were using color. i can make a dark blue right next toa dark orange and be fine but when its all black... well its all .



and here it is water colored. i dont like it after all :P



i cut it up and grabed the bits i liked and photo copied bits and pieces out of my sketch book and after some re aranging and messing around came up with something i liked more. im still going to do some tweaking in the morning so it includes the apple but i think im going to be much happier with this version. i guess stay tuned tomorrow to find out how i think it turned out.

home for some spaghetti i headed out to the ford for the evening, its about 29 degrees out but i havnt got alot of time for the car right now so any little time i can sneak in is worth taking.



one of tonights quick projects was to cut out the old U bolts that previously held in the rear spring. you can sorta see here how the clearance is to tight to just pull them out with out taking the body off.



a 4 inch grinder with a cut off wheel and the two bolts look like this now



beefy!



warm blooded. all i need is 1000 wts of work lights and a wool hat and im good to go. i can see my breath when i work but im actually pretty comfy out there most nights.



this fender support was project two. its only on the drivers side and i think serves as more of a mud flap to sheild the gas filler neck than to support anything. either way it was in my way when installing the rear spring mounting bracket on that side so it got bent out of the way for the time being. tonight i took the cut off wheel to it to cut it out of the way and get rid of the ugly bent up sections. i got about half of it cut before the grinder was to big to reach the rest so thursday ill hopefully have a minute and use the smaller air powered speedy cutter to get the rest out.

i think that ill get the majority of it out of the way and then start re working it to look nice. guess we'll see how it goes! im sure ill keep you posted ;)

feeling productive :)

well after a few days lounging around waiting for my dash to be painted i got hom elast night and today i spent most of my time in my studio.



i managed to get this painting finished, though this is far from even a decent painting i feel preety alright about it. i havnt painted a car in at least 6 years if not closer to 9 :O hopefully ill get some better shots later



tooka break for some 'fuel' and found some fried chicken and cheesy hashbrowns. good stuff indeed.



on my way out i noticed my freind mikes pickup, Sarah would love it so i tried to get a decent photo for her but as typical my camera died after taking one crappy photo :P such is life i suppose ha.



back home i made some progress on a second painting, the one on the floor in that pic



its getting there, but its deffinatly been one of those peices that you have to just pick at. coming back to work on it for a few minutes here and there. its a alot of soft thin layers so it feels like if i keep working on it for more then a little while im going to mess it up.

i started another peice that isnt ready to show and got far enough to spray paint some bits on it and it still wreaks so it hasnt realy gotten past that point yet.

any how itll be a good example of happy accidents in art and look forward to showing it later on when it eventualy looks like something worth while.

since that stunk i started this.



it was originaly going to be the deer skull in a bucket seen in an earlier post but i just wasnt feeling it so i just started painting......and taking photos.











its not done yet, but figured you like to see it kinda coming together. maybe not haha but at least it makes a better then aweful blog post ;)

im trying to avoid my typical bright contrasting colors this year. i might be failing but im trying. i think im going to do a couple layers of glazes on this to try and warm it up and at the same time tone it down. like i said i might be failing but im trying :)

and now back to watching the new tron movie on netflix. so far? not as aweful as i was expecting :)

not much new

dont know what to say, not alot going on other then watching the Huskers suck it up for 4 quarters, watch the wind actualy blow, and driving. but here are some pix i suppose.



holiday porch



Nebraska blowing



mhmmm



i guess i did kill some time thumbing threw some of Aunt Sue's design catalogs, cant go wrong with blacksmithing :)



or a flatscreen in an eisle!

ok, thats seriously all ive got. sorry :\ ill go paint so tomorrows not so lame

the 4th....

couple hours and im off to get the cars dash painted, i guess he wants to start tonight :) so i figured id post this blog a bit early.

Not a real busy day so i decided to dive into a little water color/flash painting. now generally i dont do water color, i just have a hard time getting into it. But J that i work with has a good grasp of it so we sat down and he show me some tips and tricks.



the reason i wanted to water color these designs is pretty simple, i knew there wasn't realy another good way to convey heavy black and whip shading on paper. i mean it makes since, all the traditional flash you see is water colored. I figure that if want to do more traditional-esc heavy black tattoos it would help to have something to show people what im talking about.



i also have been talking for years about making a flash sheet of small stuff id like to tattoo and make it a 'minimum sheet"



whats a minimum sheet? ^ that! lol

but seriously, i always get people asking what the shops minimum is closely followed by asking what they can get for that. Now I can show them a sheet and say THIS.

couldnt hurt right?

edit: as a disclaimer some of the images on the painted sheet are changed up flash and some are things i drew all the way threw.

numero...three.

Alright, so day three what happened today?

Well i dragged my butt out of bed this morning and charles helped me deliver the 46s' rear axle to the welder to have the mounts put on. Other then that, not alot happened today its post halloween and pre new years so its most definitely slow season.

I think I may take my new found love for HEAVY black traditional tattoos and spend the slow afternoons teaching myself to watercolor a little better and make some flash of stuff I'd like to do in this new black style. I've been planingo n it for a while seeing as people always ask what the shop min. is and then ask what they can get for that so i figure i may as well make a sheet of stuff id do for the min. makes since right? right.

kinda funny that the last few years ive been all about bright bold color and now would be just as happen doing the same tattoos but all black with a little lighter black. the worlds a strange place i suppose.



but what stays the same is my process this painting season.



mostly gridding a lose drawing onto the panel from my reference so i keep my scale correct-ish and the just make it up from there. but occasionally i do just sketch it out.



first painting of the season! figured its been about 6 years or so since ive done a painting of a car so why not give it a whirl?





and this is were i stopped so i could make this blog before midnight ha. taking a break from painting to blog about painting.

any how thats about it, load up in the morning to head for nebraska to get the 46's dash painted and see relatives. hopefully its a good time. ill atempt to post while im gone but with spotty internet connections i may end up posting the entries all together on monday or tuesday. whenever i get back to normal net service.

I think doing one huge post to cover it all is sorta cheating, as well as just making 3 posts to count as 3 days instead of actualy making then on the correct day. so i figured my solution would be to actual journal them on paper or iphone and then post them when i get back. that seems the most honest way to keep up with the every day post count.

anyhow, back to painting

EDIT:

if for some reason you enjoyed my posts with a bazillion photos in them of random things i dig i finally made it easier and got a pinterest account

http://pinterest.com/timm95/

BAM!

November 2

So, this is day two eh'?

I suppose it would only make since to make the month of blogging every day fall on the month of trying to make myself busier haha.

I realy enjoy feeling productive and as the shop unfortunantly slows down for the winter and the car projects getting lengthier I dont get that constant dose of feeling like im getting things done.

It would seem that i like a good amount of things going on at one time for the same reason that some like to fall asleep to white noise. See if I'm only working on one project, even more so if its one that takes more time to finish, the information swirls inside my head. Going over and thinking about things that have already been thought of and solved long ago. But if there are many things going on instead of feeling like im trying to have a conversation with 5 people at once its like they all fall into the gaps and create a white noise i can pretty much ignore.

another example of this would be when i fall asleep to music it cant be soft, legible music. i will lay and listen to every word, every song, until its over and then i listen to the funny hum the cd player makes when its not playing anything. i eventualy get up and shut it off and go to sleep.

however if i play something super angry and heavy and growly at a slightly louder then normal volume it just turns into white noise and i can pass out. similar to how if im sleeping on the floor you can vacume around me and i wont wake up but if you whisper my name ill wake up.

sooooooooo, with all that being said im starting to paint again, which typicaly happens around this season anyways, and blogging every day. figure that should produce enough 'white noise' for me to live with.

I think this winter I'm going to try a slightly warmer/more natural color pallet for my paintings, atempt to paint different subjects than prior years, and possibly paint some smaller works as well as some WAY bigger ones as well. try to spice it up some.

here are a few photos of things bouncing around in my head for paintings and some drawings for some tattoos i did the other day for our '1 year shop anniversary'/ customer appreciation day.

NOVEMBER!

all right, so i guess seeing as its november i will make a strong attempt to post EVERY day. I honestly only have two reasons to do this, 1: ill be able to dilute some of the car heaviness of the blog that has occurred lately and 2: i feel like if i post everyday it'll force Sarah to also post everyday thus staying on track of her posting everyday. She needs to update more then 3 times between every november, but i guess ill take what i can get ;)

and with that being said, your right, this is a pretty lame post and will most likely be taken as 'cheating' at a post a day. but whatever. haha.