Saturday, March 24, 2012

robots gotcha back...

quick post of a fun piece i just finished off.... this girl sits really well. hard as nails i tell ya! fun piece to work on.


happy lil' guy, aint he?

anyways, next customer is waiting... 

til next time.

Friday, March 23, 2012

stop! hana time!

so, i've had some lovely days off recently, involving eating incredible roasts and drinking with incredible people. oh... and shopping. cant forget all the shopping i did...

last sunday, me and simon went for a sunday roast at the abbey tavern.


so good. so after that, our evening plans got cancelled, so we strolled through to camden market. i know he blames me for the amount he spent... and .... well.... i blame him for the amount i spent. so fair's fair. 

first stop was one of my favourite little antique/curiosity shops where simon got some sweet pictures and old coins.
also made friends with a pooch called "rascal"



 i bought some weird napkins (u have to... i guess u kinda had to be there to understand how cool they are)... oh, i also bought this...


so then on the way to the taxidermy shop, i got crazy sidetracked by frilly collars (i am partial to a good frilly collar dont you know?...) anyways, ended up in an adorable taiwanese clothing shop where i bought 2 dresses, this handbag...


and this jumper (which i am incidentally wearing as i type this right now....)


so then to the taxidermy shop, where i was adamant i would not buy anything... and ended up buying 2 Victorian brooches. 

oops. oh.... and i got this in the shop next door.... : /


(yes, it is on top of my fridge. i have OFFICIALLY RUN OUT OF ANY SHELF SPACE.)
doom. lets hope the mayans were right... and this wont bother me much longer.

anyways, then we went for cocktails, which was nice. ended up getting that crazy chilli apple one again, but different barman, different drink entirely it seems. 
*come back rum loving man with long hair who's name i know not*

on tuesday... i was graced with none other than HANAWHOHASBEENAWAY FOR 4 BLOODYMONTHS' presence. 

was so good to have her home! although, she did a good job of making me feel loved and special from abroad with sweet cards and little surprise gifts in the mail. she's rad.

so i made sure i was up and dressed and ready for her imminent arrival at my front door, with a pot of tea on the go. she had brought some homemade honey back from Austria which is absolutely divine. 


then we headed to the milkshake/smoothie place which has recently become half milkshake smoothie shop... half antiques. i think it's the best shop ever. and it's down the road from me. i am a lucky gal. U know theres only one other shop in the UK where u can buy and antique and a milkshake. It's called Harrods. true story.


this does the shop no justice. 


So back to the point, i had to pick up some purchases from a previous day. i bought a set of 3 Edwardian parlour girls pictures, and a lovely little wooden boxed writing slope. We dropped that off back at mine ... then went back to buy smoothies for our trip to camden.


Hana seemed to think hers resembles a cup full of semen, which worries me. Her smoothie was Kiwi and full of seeds. (hana, speak to whoevers semen it looks like and get them to a doctor please).

anyways, after hysterically laughing our way into town and hana spitting her smoothie all over the tube, we went for tea in the pet boutique... where milo tried on... a hat.



then we bumped into Simon, and went for drinks... i was meeting Paul later that afternoon so we literally sat there... all day... 
tell ya what, the bench outside the pub made for a pretty good old man vantage point though 

paul was a little sneaky and took photos of us on his ipad... but then, i did the same with my phone. fair's fair. his photos r way better. i need an i pad. purely so i can photograph ppl on the sly. old men for example.... 


so then me n hana headed back to barnet, super excited about the prospect of getting a take away roast dinner. have you ever heard of something so miraculous and bizarre encompassed in one thought process?! other than flying monkeys... of course.




it was amazing. i dont think anyone else has ever ordered a take away roast from this particular establishment before. the chef looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown when the two simple words "to go" came out of my mouth. we had pepsi cups to fill with gravy. it was hilarious.



in other news, yes... i have been working.... just i havent had a camera at work for a week now, and keep forgetting to look for my spare and bring it to work... but i did take this on my phone the other day...


good sitting on the ribs. really looking forward to doing more on this piece. :)

right, thats all folks. 
til next time.


Saturday, March 17, 2012

better late than never...

ok, sorry for being a bit crap with the whole blogging the end of Germany etc. i've been back almost a week, but a lot has happened. first up, the studio had a break in and the computer got stolen. now, the savvy of you may realise this alone makes blogging difficult.

anyways, i'm here now, and that should be good enough.

so, the last day we were in Bremen, we got taken to a wicked flea market. i bought a shit heap of cool stuff....








this was one of the stalls. i cant describe how much stuff i would have bought if i lived closer... and ryan air weren't luggage fascists.


this beauty had to get sent in the mail. i love how ghetto it looks.


lukas bought me this rad monkey puppet to thank me for his tattoo.... which i suppose i shall post... now....


i'm so glad i managed to talk him into the question mark egg thing. i love that!

so after the flea market, we went for coffee and ice cream. seriously, perfect day. 



me n rolf in a lamp. yes, we are genies. true story.
i was meant to tattoo rolf, and was gonna get him to tattoo me, but he had a serious case of man flu while we were over, and i barely got to see him. 

just means i gotta go back! oh well...

here's some pics lukas' girlfriend, eli sent over. she has a rad collection of kickass cameras. she also has a scanner. clearly...


i'm only posting this because of the comment she made over lunch as it developed. "oh, you have your eyes closed.... i bet you look pretty when u sleep." haha, amazing.


us n rolf's pimp mobile...


the studio. i miss that place already. 


since i been back i've had a fair few friends to catch up with. yesterday i saw kez, sam and popped by my mate phil's birthday. the night before i saw rory, and we went to a lovely pub, where they had a BBQ on the go. i had some of the most amazing cocktails too. definately gonna go back. with more money. yes.


yesterday my shoes that were already falling apart... fell apart some more. i made it into who is now named "Bert". (that has to be the most grammatically incorrect sentence ever... but i kinda like the ring it has to it)

anyways, suppose i should post some more tattoos.... here's one i did today...



right, enough blogging. i got so much drawing backed up that i am starting to get to the panicky "oh my god there's not enough hours in the day" mindset which is not fun. true though... 

last up. saw this the other day. thought it looked cool. 


i cant imagine how many portions of 5 a day that must be to those little guys. 






Saturday, March 10, 2012

sex sells.

ok, so tomorrow is my last day in germany :( the week has flown by. crazyness. anyways, suppose i'd better let y'all know what i've been up to....

So the night before last we went for dinner in a really cute vegan/veggie place. They had a pretty cool logo on the menu, and the food was delicious.




on the way there.... we saw a really weird goat statue. i'm not a massive fan of goats. In fact, i cant eat goats cheese, coz goats r mean.... and the saying goes 'you are what u eat'... doesnt it?

anywas, i sat on the goat, i'm pretty sure i cant catch mean-ness from sitting on something.... although i have heard u can catch all sorts from sitting on public toilets.... bah.... i dunno.


then we went to the hearbreak hotel, which was also really cool. the barman was lovely, and we drank copius amounts of rhubarb schnapps. i also got my fill of country music, which was relieving to say the least. (since my i pod got wiped at work i have managed to get a heap of stuff on it, but havent got as much country as before and i think i was starting to get withdrawls. )

anyways, i am no longer jonesing for country, nor mean from goat sitting. that has been established.

so yesterday morning, i had some free time before my 1st booking (FINALLY!) so had a wonder round the town. bought copius amounts of cd's from a really cool little recoed shop, went through a few thrift stores, basically had a good ol' gander. didnt photograph much as my phone is constantly low on batteries, as i only have 1 adaptor and thats being used by my power pack at work most of the time.... but did spot this cool building...


last night we went out for asian food. and guess what? yup.... it was amazing. seriously, i havent had a single bad meal since arriving. it's unfathomable to me. 

the kids menu in english was so delightful... (i actually opened the menu on this page, and just assumed they thought english people were.... slow. )



grapefruit beer rocks my socks. 


these veggie dumplings were to die for. baked with cream cheese inside, accompanied by a plum dipping sauce *drool*

anyways, nothing crazy last night, a few cocktails then back to the hostel. i had drawing to do, and we have a myriad of weird n wonderful alcoholic beverages in our hostel fridge to work through...


so... onto this morning, where we went to the erotic emporium. i have never been in a sex shop at 10 in the morning before.... and it was a little... odd. The woman behind the counter was an adorable chubby middle aged non descript breath of fresh air too.


the place is huge. like some of their dildos....


i cant even begin to describe how much stuff they sold. it was insane. they even had life sized tansexual sex dolls. so for all of u out there who were struggling to find one.... now u know where to go. 

they also had this crazy bed...


anyways... too much to photograph, but here's a few more shots of this n that...


seems literally everything u could bung some sort of tattoo related design on... has been well and trully bunged.


last up, this one's for kez who is obsessed with getting a photo of me in lederhosen.... this is the closest i saw, and they r expensive... and for men...



oh, and i saw this ADORABLE little bar made out of a boat! it's so cute! if i lived here, i would totally buy it and set it up as my workstation at work. yup. no more 'left' and 'right'... it'd be which limb is this going on... port or starboard? amazing.



oh speaking of work, i just tattooed Lukas who works here at Hellfish. I will finally have something workwise to blog! i gotta photoshop it together though, so if all goes well, monday. bam. 

so thats my guest spot done. no more tattoos. it's been busy and awesome, and am definitely gonna be back. tomorrow we are going to a flea market, which sounds dangerous, as i have been shopping a little too much dare i say it. found a skate shop yesterday with stuff i couldnt resist, and bought some weird shit in the 2nd hand shop next to the studio yesterday, including a mother of pearl inlayed penknife, some family photos of a young Nazi... a clothes peg necklace... clearly all stuff i cannot bear to be without.