Tattooed Furniture Part 6

17 April 2012

Finally, I finished my own piece of tattooed furniture! A cute little good luck footstool. You may have seen some of the inspiration I posted here and here.

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I used the special sign painter’s paint called One Shot. It is a paint also used by hot rodder’s to do pinstriping. It is very stinky and should be used in a well ventilated area. The finished result is glossy like an enameled glaze. It is tricky and messy and needs to be cleaned up with turpentine. That’s why it took me so long to finish!

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The footstool will be on display at my upcoming performing art piece here in Paris. Intrigued? You will hear all about it soon!

Artsit Alan Aldridge

21 May 2011

Inspirational artwork from english artist Alan Aldridge, works from the ’60’s and ’70’s. Mind blowing technique!

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Learning Lettering

30 December 2010

Back when I was apprenticing at Goldfield’s I got interested in lettering. Henry Goldfield was a sign painting nut and I always admired lettering in tattoos. The problem was, I hated my own handwriting. So I decided to practice and studying good lettering for tattoos. I bought a notebook and started filling it up by copying or trying to copy the styles I admired. I also did my designing for lettering tattoos in the book. Now when anyone asks for lettering I can show them the book so they can see all the styles available and chose what they like. It’s a great exercise for any kind of drawing you want to get better at. I’m filling up a book of pretty ladies and I want to do one with dragons someday.

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Disclaimer: I can imitate some popular tattoo lettering styles but I’m pleased to see that I’ve really developed my own style. Copying may be sometimes ok for the sketch book but it’s not fair to bring it in your own work. Like they say “Emulate, NOT Duplicate”.

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Where Ideas Come From

7 July 2010

I fell in love with this image and was tempted just to redo it with girls instead of mustachioed chinamen. But, after meditating on it and sketching a bit I came up with the drawing for Alice’s Voyage.

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It was around the time I was coming up with images for Tea and Circus an art show I had in Berlin. First she’s traveling in a tea cup. Disney, oh how you have influenced me.

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This sketch is very close to the first inspiration.

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Some of the research images.

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Final drawing:

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Inspiration for color: Tim Walker fashion photo

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And final painting:

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Tin Toys

15 September 2009

I’m a huge book collector. I find tons of inspiration for my work in books like 1000 Robots, Spaceships and Other Tin Toys and American Tin-Litho Toys.

I had the chance to go to the Museum of Tin Toys in Yokohama last spring, it was like a pilgrimage for me! (I will tell you more about that later)

Here’s a silkscreen print that I did and the toy that inspired the image. The title is Solve and Coagula (seperate and rejoin) the first priciples of alchimy. Instead of turning lead into gold she’s turning fabric into monsters!

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The silkscreen print is available in my shop (ten colors!)

After The Vacation

8 September 2009

I’m just back from 5 lovely days on the cote d’azure. While I was relaxing I tried carving some little stamps. Apparently it’s all the rage in Japan, but I don’t know what this craft is called. It was super easy to cut into the rubbery surface. I think I’ll try to do some larger images to resemble lynograveur.

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