Friday, November 7, 2008

Post 21

where have i been? recovering from this.....



i'm fine, the car is not. new print will be up by monday.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Post 20- Prints are in

Yes, prints are in. Get ready....

Starting this month, new print or prints every month on the first of the month.

So, a set of 3 new prints in stock for the month of October.


3 rose studies, originally ink and watercolor

Printed on Arches Watercolor Paper

Each individual print is 11.43 cm X 16.51 cm ( 4.5" X 6.5")

Limited to 10 sets

$60

Click Here to view and purchase.

Unfortunately, none of the prints will be available for pick up at Ink Machine. I'm running this operation from my newly reorganized studio at home. Please follow the link to purchase or to make arrangements if you would like to pick them up at the tattoo studio.

In other news, i have joined Y2K, and picked up an iphone. This has made my life 10 times more organized, and 1000 times more productive.

Lots of new tattoo projects on the go, prints every month, shirts will be up on the website soon, illustration projects....

Check back often, it's going to be fun!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

RIP- Ray Underhill

wow... did not expect to come across this this morning.... teagan and i have just been watching tons of old bones brigade videos, and my mom just gave me back a ton of my old skate boards, one of which is signed by ray.... huge part of my youth....


Aug 1, 2008- "Ray Underhill spent the past two years battling a Chordoma brain tumor. Despite the condition’s debilitating effects, Ray maintained the kindness and strength he was known for. He was an example to his family and to his friends of what it means to be a father, a husband, a friend. Throughout his ordeal, Ray never let his spirit succumb to the cruelty of his condition.

After surgery, and several radiation and chemotherapy treatments, Ray passed away on Friday morning, August 1, 2008, at a hospital near his home in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Ray will be remembered by some as the Powell-Peralta Bones Brigade pro of the late 1980s with the smooth style and deep bag of tricks. He will be remembered by others in the skateboard industry as the Gullwing Team Manager or Web Master at Eastern Skateboard Supply. To those of us who knew Ray, he’s remembered as the guy we wish we were. The one we wish everyone else would emulate—his candor, his kindness, his sense of humor an example to us all. If everyone in the world were just a little more like Ray, what an amazing, peaceful place this would be.

His wife Kerry, and their children Keaton (13) and Olivia (8) lost a husband and a father on Friday. And skateboarding lost a brother—one who made his mark on his board, but who went on to affect us all in far more profound ways for who he was off his skateboard. Quite simply, he was the best of us, and is tremendously missed.
"

Friday, August 1, 2008

Post 19

"Hey, Wha' Happened?" ... yea, i know.... i went on vacation and took the week-and-a-bit off the blog. i have tons of photos from that week, but they seem to be taking a while to resize and edit. so for now, you get this.

when we got back from our vacation, i checked my email and was amazed to see that an old friend had emailed me about getting tattooed. if you've been involved in the edmonton music scene in any way the last 10 years, you probably know Nik 7 of the mighty Shout Out Out Out Out. i had run into Nik about a year ago at the Little Caesar Pizza by the studio, but other than that, i hadn't seen Nik in probably 10 years.

not only was it great Nik wanted to get tattooed, but it was an amazing tattoo.

Tattoo of the Month-

"Pobody's Nerfect" wow.... in fancy script. wow..... amazing. i love doing fun tattoos. i should have taken a photo of the amazing Big Business shirt he was wearing, but hey, poboby's nerfect....

i had a great time tattooing and hanging out with ya Nik! it's always great to catch up with old friends, but it's extra special to see someone that you were doing creative things with 10 years ago, still working hard and creating. i believe Nik even has a song about this... but it's true. Nik's been working hard making music in Wilf's basement for over 10 years now and still manges to produce new, and amazing projects. Truly inspiring for me.

soooooooooooooooo......... let's take a jaunt down memory lane for fun. you may know and love Nik 7, electronic wizard and front man of shout out out out out, however, Nik has played in many other bands. i'm going in reverse chronological order, because it's more fun that way....

alright, so the first and probably most remembered will be The Cleats. Nik and Chris in a hall

then let's go back a bit further to a lackey's reunion show

same show, different band. i believe Nik played in 3 bands that night. who remembers The Skeptics?

different show, same band. i do remember this being a day show, so Nik is not wearing his sunglasses at night.

so these last 2 are special to me because this was the first show i had been to. i would have been 14 or 15 at the time, it was Defiance in a basement across from Kingsway Garden Mall, and Nik's band The Lackey's opened. it was all down hill from here for me.... in a good way.

Nik7 and Nik5

"support your local scene"

just to show it's all in good fun.... Nik made us want to learn to play music and start bands, period. to this day, i still screen print all my own shirts in my house, because Nik got me into it when he worked at a screen printing studio. 100% DIY, punk rock, forever.

me and my best friend peter, back in the day....
this is where i should have taken a photo of me and Nik together, 10 years later, to document the passage of time. but again, hey, pobody's nerfect....

ps- this is a SMALL sample of my old Nik photos. Nik, you're lucky i couldn't find any of my old Edmontons photos, featuring Nik and Chris playing surf rock in only jock straps, if memory serves correct.... let's go skate some time soon!

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Post 18

....we're on a roll!

as promised, i touched up rebecca's back today. you can see the cover a bit over in the grass, it was scared so the outline gets all puffy when i touch it up. can't wait to get a better photo when it's healed.



i also worked on taryn's sacred hearts for two hours or so. i can't even imagine getting behind my knees tattooed, so when we're done i don't push for pics. i just bandage her up and get her home asap. one more session and we'll be done.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Post 17

... second day in a row, is that a first for this blog? i'd have to go back and check..... which i do not feel like doing.....


let's get right down to it. this is how i wanted to "come back" to the world of blogin'......



CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS?????
i don't actually want and explanation at all, but i could not believe when i rode past this billboard on my way to work.

amazing, has marketing come to this? we're going back to fido dido? this is the best the pespsi corp could come up with for the new 7UP adds? really, someone got paid to make the decision to bring back fido dido? wow.

i'm not sure if a horrible thing can even get worse, but it does......

so he's CGI now? really? fido dido was a LINE DRAWING. so someone else got paid to render a 2D, line drawing of fido dido, into the new CGI fido dido '08?
LOOK AT HIS HAIR!!!! HE WAS A LINE DRAWING!!!!

notice in the above "renderd" fido has multiple levels of hair which fall down like dreadlocks... however in the lower photo... he has basically a CGI, two dimensional head, and his hair goes up. the poor graphics department were so confused by the task at hand, they couldn't even decide one, final look for fido dido '08.

his hands are pretty awesome too...
nice work pepsi! i really wanted to make a comparison to bringing back what i remember to be "red eraser" clothing. i couldn't find any pics.... maybe that wasn't the name.... but if you remember fido dido, you probably remember a clothing line with a line drawing of basically the same thing, but with...

...wait for it.... red hair.....

let's bring that jackass back too to sell kids some crap. wow... he'd have....

...wait for it....RED CGI hair.

crap, i should get that job, i can remember tons of late 80's- early 90's crap to revamp and bring back to the youth of today.

kids these days are getting screwed over.... they don't get any thing new, they don't even get to enjoy my youth the way i remember it. they get crappy, watered down, CGI fido dido and such...

...*heavy sigh*.....

again, i really wish i could have found a photo of "red eraser", it probably would have been funnier. so instead, i'll have to compare the fido dido comeback to....

.... the new hypercolor toilet seat.


moving right along....


i tattooed my friend dan today. we outlined a ton of smaller traditional stuff last session, so this time 'round, we colored them all in. i took photos, but only for drawing reference. they're blurry and crappy and you don't get to see them.

then i tattooed nicole's other foot.


the "dad" side was still healing, so thanks to the magic of photoshop, some copy , paste.... we can see them together.

that's all for tonight. i'm touching up a really cool cover up tomorrow, hopefully i'll get some good pics.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Post 16- "so where the hell have you been?"

...good point, it's been, what, a month or two? time files. . .

summer's been great so far. fun tattoos, lots of bike riding, bbq.... for the first summer in a long time, i haven't over booked or over worked myself, and it's great. well, great for me.

unfortunately for new clients, this means i have not taken on the crazy work load i normally do when summer arrives. this has created a huge back log of messages in my inbox, which can be quite overwhelming and difficult to keep on top of.

i try my best to answer as many emails as possible on a weekly basis, however, working on existing drawings and tattoos is always priority #1 for me. i have again tried to reorganize my intake system and created a bunch of new fancy folders with in my webmail. hopefully this will smooth things over and make it easier for me to keep on top of the my work load.

if you have emailed me this last week, month, if you are a new client, if you are an old client, i will do my best to respond to every message i get. being one person, these things take time , i'm sorry. you patience is greatly appreciated.

over the next few days, i will try to respond to as many messages as possible, to clear up the back log . however, this is what i'm up against. like i said, it takes a while to respond to 199 new messages.....



well, now that everyone's skipped over reading that blurb, let's move on to what everyone comes to blogs for, photos.


about a month or so ago, i was having bike problems that were not getting solved over the phone with my friends at super champion. so i flew out with my bike for the day....

***flying to vancouver tip- you get off the plane, it's pouring rain, and the line for cabs is a mile and a half long, and not moving. look to your left, there are normally 2-4 limos sitting there. especially during rush hour (so like 8 am to about 7 pm) it costs about $30-35 to take a cab downtown, maybe even more with all the construction these days. a limo is $40 flat rate. ***
here's ty working on his road bike. check it out, a pink and purple De Rosa Casanova, awesome.
you would think nick is building up this beautiful bob jackson, however, the opposite is true. last time i was out to visit, he was building it up for sale. in 2 months, it did not sell, so he's taking it apart for pieces.... so sad.....
love the lugz.... if it wasn't 3 sizes too small, it would have come home with me, no questions asked.
they do a lot for me, so i did a painting for them.
we have an amazing basement that i have done nothing with sine we moved in. being at super champion inspired me to clean up a bit when i got home. the rocky poster came with the house, obvious perk.
i also had to have super champion send me out a rebuilt wheel. super impressed with the "custom" box. so is aku.
...all of which make me really want get out and ride our velodrome. teagan and i have been out to a few races this year. so fun to go out and watch. they're tearing it down soon to start building our new indoor velodrome. i HAVE to ride the outdoor before it's no more. photos from a recent race.

hey, how about some tattoo photos? i'm normally stingy with work in progress photos. that could also be translated to "i really hate resizing and editing photos after tattooing all day." which ever you prefer. however, i am a process junkie. i love seeing other people progress, sketches, ideas.... so i guess i should start giving a bit of that back.

*please note- all pics are of fresh, not healed, tattoos. hence the flash glare and sometimes crappy photos.

my friend brian is flying out from vancouver every few months to work on an alice an wonderland sleeve. i colored the white rabbit and some background last time.
some thistles on kay's back/arm.
doug's a monster when it comes to getting tattooed. we did this in just over a month. he came in every week for 3 hrs, with the exception of one week. he took one week off, and his wife had their second baby that week. congrats doug!

just a touch up/ finishing session away from being done!
speaking of backpieces, just because there haven't been any blog updates, doesn't mean josh hasn't been plugging away at her's. a few weeks ago we colored the bottom flower. next session, scales.

finished up megan's peonies and swallows. 3 sessions, ouch.... i don't think i'm tough enough to ever get my lower stomach tattooed. you're a chap megan.
here's my friend nicole's foot. we'll be tattooing the other one tomorrow.
to keep it a bit more recent, as in this week, i outlined this cherry blossom branch on sarah's ribs 2 days ago. it still amazes me that this is normal for someone's first tattoo these days. crazy.... my first tattoo was small, in the middle of my forearm. it was not a 2.5 hr outline taking up half my ribs.
have to finish it all up with a fun, amazing, joke tattoo. i love doing this stuff on good friends. justin pays homage to his love for pancakes and coffee. i feel blessed every time i get someone requesting something like this. sippin on some sizzurp' ... you rule justin.

that's all for now.

i'm not going to talk about how i hope to be posting more often, i'll just do it. see you soon.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Post 15

well, it's that time of the month again. another monthly sitting on my friends backpiece. it was really nice out today, so i felt like giving her some color, or more like i did not feel like shading for 3.5 hrs today only using black. have i said i love working on this tattoo before?
after, teagan and i went for a bike ride around the mean bike paths of lacomb park east. it was a beautiful night for a nice, relaxing bike ride. i love this girl.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Post 14- The Return to Vancouver

so this last weekend, i made my way back to vancouver. it was pretty much a week short of a year since we moved. just a coincidence.

so i'm still really bad at taking photos of all the fun little things we did. i need to get in a better habit of that.

day one i tattooed my new friend tyler from super champion. he builds beautiful, solid bikes, i try my best to do beautiful, solid tattoos, so we made a trade. he was going to get both sides of his hips tattooed, however after finishing one we both realized there wasn't much chance he'd be laying on that fresh tattoo to get the other side done.

i tattooed a big espresso cup with a banner that said Double Espress "D" in it. tyler loves coffee, or so i'm told, however, he was told the night before by he wasn't able to drink coffee for two weeks. that must have been really hard, getting a tattoo expressing your love for coffee, with out being able to enjoy a cup before, during or after. my heart goes out to you on that one ty, i couldn't imagine getting a grape juice tattoo and not being able to enjoy a glass.

i don't have a picture of the tattoo. someone please email me one.

then i tattooed nic from super champion, who help build my bike. he sat like a rock. again, i don't have a photo of that tattoo, someone please email me one.

this is my bike. i painted the frame olive green, the super champion boys did everything else. there were a few complications in the build, so THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who helped out. duncan's nic for picking up the risers, nic and ty for working the chain and gearing... anyone and everyone who put this together, thank you. it's far beyond what i was looking for.



day two i tattooed my friend shanah. she'll be sewing for a living fairly soon i predict, so quite appropriate tattoos. buy her stuff.



then duncan and i got down to the heart of the trip, trying to do as much as possible on his sleeve. we pretty much finished the bottom half of his arm. it was awesome. i don't have a picture of that either.

day 3 duncan and i got right back to work at about 10 am. we did a bunch of short burst or about an hour or two at a time. then he'd take a break and ice his arm.

the second night i was there, we went for dinner at nirvana and i got to meet duncan's nic. at that time he asked me if i had time to tattoo him. it was duncan's nic, and i wanted to make it work for him, so i asked him what he wanted and he told me he wanted to get two lizard/dinos duncan had drawn. duncan then informed me that he would be freehanding them on nic's leg for me to tattoo.

at this point i should clarify, i love doing fun tattoos. i love doing fun, silly tattoos for friends. i take what i do quite seriously and work hard, however, it's always good to get light hearted. sometimes, you just need to get or do some silly, fun stuff for friends who share the same sense of humor.

so after about 2-3 hrs of tattooing duncan on day 3, nic arrived to get tattooed. duncan and i took a break. i cleaned and set up fresh for nic. i think none of us were too sure if duncan would actually be able to redraw what he had done on paper, with his arm that had now been tattooed for 5+ hrs. so he went to work...



here we can note that nic actually made various sized photocopies of the original drawing. i had stencil paper and we told duncan he could stencil it... there was no way that was going to happen once he got the sharpie in his hand.
no one could keep a straight face including nic.


final duncan drawing. it's EXACTLY the same as the copie he did on paper. are the 2 lizard/dinos duncan and nic.....

it can also be noted that the speech bubbles were left open. the original had "dude?" "dude!" in them i think... i believe "awesome" was tossed around at some point. in the end, it was decided that it would be WAY more fun for nic or who ever to just fill them in daily with pen.

finished tattoo. i'm sure the eye is bleeding because i was laughing so hard i couldn't take a steady photo the first few attempts.the artist and his work.... seriously, it took me forever to resize this photo in photoshop. i couldn't stop laughing and having my eyes tear up. he's so proud.

this is for sure one of my favorite moments in my tattoo career.
so then we went back to duncan watching CSI and me tattooing his sleeve. we worked for another 2 hrs or so, at which point duncan informed nic that he should start practicing drawing track bikes, because he was going to be drawing one on his wrist for me to tattoo.

total bro love.

i finished up what i was tattooing on duncan, nic did a few rough drafts on paper, and stepped up to the plate.

so by this point i'm sure there are a few of you thinking "so how drunk are these guys" and yes, in this photo duncan is drinking a beer. however, this was the only beer in the house, and duncan is only 2 sips into it after having his arm tattooed for over 8 hrs this weekend. nic has had nothing to drink, i have had nothing to drink.... well, lots of gatorade, but we are all stone sober.

in this photo you'll notice a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol i gave nic to use as an eraser for the sharpie just in case. i believe duncan's response was "you won't be using or needing that."
at some point, it was also decided to add "giver" under the bike. i had no part in that.

100% duncan.
nics final sharpie drawing.

(duncan had tried to hand poke a speech bubble on his other wrist, god knows when. he redrew his attempt for me to tattoo, after the bike. that's the story behind what's on his left hand in case you were wondering....)

oh yea, i almost forgot. after cleaning it up with blue sharpie, duncan noted that the "giver" was not at all centered with the bike.

of course the solution was not to erase and try again, but instead to add 2 exclamation points to balance things out.
the artist and his work. total bro love.
we bandaged up, i stared cleaning, while duncan and nic took apart and boxed my bike. then duncan and i went for vera's burgers, and off to the airport.

i had a blast this weekend. thank you again duncan, shanah, tyler, duncan's nic, nic heart, and everyone else i had the pleasure of meeting. it was an amazing 3 days. thank you.



.....so my cats LOVE these fleece mice you get at TISOL in vancouver. i picked them up a few, and they were ALL over my bag the second i opened it. the toys were still buried in my cloths, but they knew something was up. how could i not give them their birthday presents, even though it was 2 am by the time i got home from the airport. happy belated 4th birthday thomas and aku. 2am catnip madness...