I'm so tired...

Got back to York tonight at a good time, normally I don't get home till after 9pm on a Saturday. Last week the exhibition was on and when I wasn't at the shop I was working on stuff for that, this week I've been worried about the tattoos I've had to do and not slept much at all. Even though I have drawing to do I'm taking tonight off, I'll be drawing most of tomorrow on my only day off so I don't suppose one night will matter much.
I did two tattoos last week and two tattoos this week, last week was the twitchy leg tattoo and I did my first tribal piece, this week I worked on Pauline's rose tattoo some more (she now has the outline of a full on gypsy lady face with roses and butterflies) and got to start another larger piece on Dan of an owl. Leaving tattoos as just an outline is really hard because I know my lines aren't good enough, all three tattoos that I've had to leave as an outline have stressed me out no end, I hate the thought of anybody seeing them how they currently look, I can't wait to finish them all! Next week I have three tattoos booked in, I'm hoping to get at least two of them finished, the other is probably going to be too big and will need a second sitting, I'm so slow! I know I'm only going to get faster with practice and I can't be too harsh or impatient with myself, I'm still only at the start of it all.
So it's not even 10.30pm and I'm thinking I'm going to crawl into bed, yep thats what I'm going to do, night all :)

Exhibition this weekend...

Here is a link:
http://against-the-grain-artshow.blogspot.co.uk/
If you're about join us for drinks and arty fun times, this Friday and Saturday in York :D

Today was hard...

First tattoo in two weeks, I was a bit nervous! Happy with the design, excited to tattoo it and Sue (who I was tattooing) loved it too, unfortunately she had a really twitchy leg. I was my first really twitchy tattoo and I found it hard and stressful, I'm just an apprentice after all and I really struggled with my linework. She kept apologising but she didn't need to, obviously these things happen, legs are twitchy, thats part of tattooing, people move and hurt and ache. We didn't get finished so she's back in a few weeks and hopefully I'll be able to sort out some of my lines and finish the colour, today I feel dissapointed in myself for not doing better. It was a good learning experience though and had to happen sooner or later and apart from the twitchy leg Sue was amazing, I'm looking forward to finishing it, I just hope I can do a good job for her.
Should I be so honest about how I'm feeling and what I'm going through while I learn to tattoo?! I don't know but I'm going to do it anyway this is my apprenticeship diary!

It's been a while...

I've not posted in weeks, but since I'm sat at home ill (I was actually sent home because nobody at the shop wanted to catch my horrid cold!) I thought I'd try catch up.
Here are pictures of all the tattoos I've done up til now...

No. 2: Phillis the bee, I found this one so hard, at the time it was too big for my skill level, there were a lot of tears that day!

No 3: On one of my besties, it was her first colour tattoo, there were so many lines and any apprentice will tell you lining is so flippin hard, hahaha :)

No 4: I struggled with the cherries, once again there was tears!

No 5: I feel like the feather was a turning point for me, I'd been so stressed and nervous with all of the other tattoos and with this one I was really excited to do it. I was still stressed and nervous but it all finally started to become fun!

No 6: Morris the Moth, I was excited to tattoo a moth!

No 7: Max Power the stag beetle, I was excited to do this, although its not typical stag beetle colours John helped me pick colours that would make it more interesting.

No 8: This horseshoe and rose took a long time, I was attempting black and grey, trying new needles and new colour combinations, it was a long day but Paul sat like a rock!

No 9: This is Mike the snail, I had a stressful morning because I had some things to sort out with the design but we got there in the end, this was the first day I was mostly on my own and it was terrifying!

No 10: I was so excited to do the crown and Emma loved the drawing.

No 11: Pencil the wasp! This day also started out stressfully but we got there in the end, Mark was a star and it didn't take me forever to finish, maybe I'm finally starting to get a little bit faster.

All I can say is a massive thank you to everyone who has let me tattoo them so far, you've all been amazing! I'm very grateful to everyone that's shared or blogged about my tattoos and I honestly don't know what I'd do without John and Jen looking after me.

At the moment I'm finding it hard to keep up, I'm still an apprentice so looking after the shop, John, Jen and their enquiries comes first, then I can think about drawings for tattoos, tattooing and answering my own enquiries. There have been a lot of early morning starts and late night finishes for me over the last few weeks, which is probably why I'm ill now, I'm completely ran down. I know I'm not the only apprentice going through this right now and I'm not whinging by any means, I love my job! All of this hard work is eventually going to be worth it :)

I did a real tattoo!!

Hahaha, an actual tattoo on an actual person!
The person was one of my best friends (Pauline Carney AKA Enola Autumn) and she sat so well, especially since I wasn't at my most confident and it took me a good few hours.
I did it last friday and I should have blogged about it last week but I was completely frazzled, it's taken me until now to have the time to do it. It took me a long time to do that first line and although I have a long way to go and need to improve my lines a lot, once I'd settled into it the linework was the most straightforward part for me. The shading was completely different to the pigskin, the ink didn't go in anywhere near as quickly and I was concerned I was going to make the whole tattoo too dark! I was also worried about over-working and blowouts, since these aren't really issues on the pigskin, but I did alright, John kept a close watch on me and helped me through. So here is a photograph of my first tattoo...

We're going to do a lot more to it yet, it's going to end up being a full gypsy lady head and shoulders with roses and butterflies, but this is it for now. I know I still have a long way to go and so much to learn but this is a start. Thank you so much Pauline and John, I don't know what I'd have done without you :)

This week I got tattooed myself, by Jen who works at the shop too ( http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002099961656&sk=info#!/talloola), she did some lovely flowers and a ladybird on my foot. It was agony! I give in before she'd finished, foot tattoos really hurt, so we've still got some leaves and background to finish in the future. My foot is currently swollen and sore, it's gone down since yesterday when it looked like a balloon but I still have a very fat foot and ankle today. It's going to take a long time to forget how much it hurt so that I can eventually get the other foot tattooed! :D

Pigskin colour blending...

So I'd been practicing colour blending through some tribal patterns last week on the pigskin, I finally decided (with a little push) to try colour blending on a rose design and this is what I managed...

Still a long way to go but it's a start! I've been colour blending blues today, the problem with the pigskin is that the lighter colours stain the dark colours straight away and you end up with a washed out looking tattoo, the reds weren't too bad but the blues today were terrible, I'll be trying the blues again tomorrow...

Standing watching John tattoo today made me realise what a crazy and awesome job this is, making permanent art on people skin, its amazing! I can't wait :D

Also today I've been talking to another apprentice (hi Alicia!) and it's nice to know that I'm not the only one going through the things I am, its nice to have someone else to talk to about the learning process, we can swap tips and discuss things we're finding hard, it makes me feel less crazy!

And finally I'm looking forward to this weekend because I have some time off, I'm going to a wedding (nothing to wear, eekkk!) and then next week Chris (the bf) is getting tattooed in Hull and I'll be going with him, so it'll be tattooed, wedding holiday fun for me, yey, can't wait for the break! :)

Waahhhh...

So I've not posted in a little while, I've been on a bit of a downer since getting back from the Tattoo Tea Party. I met some amazing people there, I even met some tattoo artists that I've been following for years now, I was a little star struck, hahaha
It was such a fun weekend and then driving back on the Sunday made me realise I've got such a long way to go and it was overwhelming. Because of this I've considered stopping the blog just because I don't feel like I have time but I really want some sort of record of my apprenticeship. It's not easy, its really flippin hard, and I don't want to forget where I started.
The sketch a day was murdered over the tea party weekend too, so its just become a sketch as often as I can situation. I'll try to get some of them posted soon but being without my scanner and pc makes it difficult.
Today was one of those days when it hit me how much everything has changed in the last year. If someone had told me this time last year that in a year I'd be apprenticing, meeting artists that I'd followed for years and living miles away from Chris I'd probably have laughed at them. It's strange how things turn out...