thrifty

so yesterday i went trawling through  thrift stores and a big ol' antique emporium. found some pretty sweet shit. gotta say.....

this is a sweet little ivory weekly jotter with a kick ass clasp i found.

clearer photo of the days...

found this 1st edition from 1927....

here's a book review from amazon.... can't wait to read it.

Robert Graves' tongue-in-cheek treatise laments the decline of swearing and foul language in England and looks back with nostalgia at the glory days of oaths and blasphemies.Written when Graves was teaching at Cairo University in 1926, a time when censorship in England was still in full sway, Lars Porsena is an impassioned defence of the foul-mouthed in literature and a resounding raspberry in the face of hypocrisy and puritanism.

got some cool frames for me to fill....

a crazy ass huge grain shovel from asia.....

and that aint even all of it. i bought miss ely who tattoos at F8 a sterling silver stamp holder. let's just say.... i think it'll come in handy for her extra curricular activities. 

oh, and i got a fur stole.... for a fiver. fuck yeah.

if i didn't have a job, i reckon i would make the best crazy bag lady trawling through skips n shit. i could find a gem in a turd. seriously.

anyways, then i went out on my roof terrace and played some chess on my laptop. i'm hopefully gonna be teaching harry how to play, so figured i'd better double check i still could. although.... i could probably tell him that queens can jump 4 spaces and only kill castles and he'd believe me.... so kinda mute point.

grass is greener

so the day after i got back from southampton was splendid as ever, so we took the lil' man to the park for a picnic.

after a manic run around, and once Milo cottoned on we had food.... namely babybel cheese, he settled down pretty well

this has to be the best photo i ever took of him mid-shake. god bless sunny days and no flash.

think the sun was a bit bright for the little man, he started tearing up pretty bad...

we soon fixed the problem.

on the way back home i stumbled across some daisies.... so did what any 28 year old with a bunch of free time would do. made a daisy chain collar. yup.

i think he looks pretty damn regal.

Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan!

so i'm back from southampton. what a strange place that was. we wandered to and fro, all over really..... and didn't find much except for a massive freddie mercury statue, an annoying kid outside kfc, a hectic altern-a-youth street party, the oldest pub in the world with the biggest parrot cage ever placed inside a drinking establishment and a pretty awful drag queen show. true story.

so the convention was alright, not crazy busy, but was nice to get outta london for a weekend break really. did enough work to be busy without being stressed which is nice.

here's our spectacularly awesome booth.....

here's some fun stuff i did whilst sitting in aforementioned spectacularly awesome booth....

and last but by no means least..... here is a rather self proclaiming pimpin' banner from a dude who had a booth next to us. amazing..... no?!

sorry for the lack of freddie mercury pictures, but i didn't have my camera with me (trust me.... i was more disappointed than y'all)

anyways, returned to this beautiful little face which i missed more than god misses credibility.

and this....

sweet. never gonna get eaten..... but sweet.

the beginning.....

so work's been pretty hectic, and with all the bank holidays n stuff, i just haven't found time to get online.... so here's a hasty update on the past weeks doings etc....

first up, started a big ol' chunk of chris' sleeve.....

"what's that she's eating" you ask.....

a flower.

"why" you ask....

why the hell not.

it's based on 'The Torture Garden'. nuff said.

And aslo started this snakey wrap around.....

looking forward to doing more on both of these pieces. good stuff.

anyways, i'll be at the southampton convention from tomorrow, so don't expect to hear much from me til mid next week.

Oh, and i was gonna go see the Descendents play with Teenage Bottle Rocket the other day.... and 'Milo's voice blew out' the night before, he couldn't finish the set and had to have other people jump in.  Postponed til August apparently. Funny how i was talking to a guy bout them playing Australia a good 6 months ago and they were saying the exact same thing...... hmmmmmm.

lame?

me thinks so.

Tonight i'm gonna get myself down to a screening of the Cabinet of Dr Caligari which is one of my all time favorite films..... and there'll be a live score accompanying. super awesome! 

Sundae bloody sundae

quick post during my lunch break..... here's what i got up to yesterday. it had to squeeze behind something i didn't do. we'll be doing more similar weird and wonderful stuff on this arm soon! she's pretty much left it all up to me, so can't complain!

went to see comeback kid the other night, was an awesome show. got dan higgs this sunday, then descendants on tuesday.... again, can't complain!

2 become 1

so i originally had 2 fucking sweet pieces in today. Unfortunately, the 2nd piece couldn't make it in, and is rethinking the subject matter.... so only did 1.

Cyril is one of my customers from Hong Kong who happens to be in London this week and got in touch to book in a few weeks ago. I've been looking forward to doing this since he first messaged me his idea, so really glad we got it all finished. He sat really well, even though i could tell he was really suffering! Started doing some soft browns as colour fill towards the end, but ended up not doing much as i think he's reached his limit!

click to enlarge peeps. 

total tattoo

So figured it's about time i blog the article that got published last month. Now it's the month after and there's a new issue out i feel that's totally acceptable. Anyways, i've resized the images small enough to make reading it pretty impossible!

Doesn't mean i still can't share though! Once again, thanks to Total and Sally for the honour, and thanks to Al for making Milo look absolutely adorable and managing to set up a mini studio in my front room and take photos whilst balancing on my sofa. And last but not least, thanks to all my awesome customers who let me do weird and wonderful tattoos.