The blog that got away.....

So i realized yesterday that i never actually did get round to posting the spankin' new shirts we got made before we went away....

Really good quality shirts with a discharge print.... lovely!

We still have a bunch left available from the shop.... Girls and guys sizes.

So it's still scorching hot here in Hong Kong,check the weather forecast for yesterday HERE

But people are already dressed for winter! It's unbelievable... here's a pic from my bus ride home last night! Maybe they live in an igloo.....

Pretty non eventful day at the shop yesterday, more tribal (of course). Got a sweet piece in today so will hopefully post that later.....

Til then, here's a pic of a road sign down the road from my local pub.... best road name ever!

In Bloom

So all the tattoos i did today were flowers. It's weird how a lot of the time, i seem to get whole days of the same subject matter booked in (unintentionally). did 3 pieces today, here's 2 of them.

First one is a cover up, and i'm starting to get more and more picky with which cover up's i take on. from now on, i dont want so many size restrictions. It gets frustrating trying to something that would be A) so much easier if it was just a little bigger, and
B) look so much better if it was bigger too!



This one came out OK though, but if it was just a little bigger...... I'll shut up now.

Second up was this geometrical hallucination. She sat like a champ, cant have been plesant going over the shoulder onto the chest. 10 points lil' lady!




The half sleeve pics from yesterday didnt come out too great, all the black was healed, so the fresh sections looked swollen and funky, by the time we finished the bottom half had settled down, so here's a section that came out ok with not so much glare! more geometrical madness. I'm not an architect people! No fun! haha I have a deep rooted hatred of drawing anything that needs a "tool", ruler, compass, protractor etc etc (the closest i came for a long time was using a beer mat to trace a semi circle for a light ray on a sketch!)

stupid gravity!

OK just finished for the day (extrememly early, as my last booking is stuck in singapore airport :( )
did this piece today, the guy added the date last minute (and yeah, he wanted it that small and written in that order..... i dunno.) it sucks when u get a nice piece, u get it sketched out ur getting super psyched bout it and then there's a "oh yeah, and can i have this and that ....blah blah'' and u think WHY?!

dont get me wrong, i dont mind dates on tattoos, but i do mind when someone obviously wants something added for a reason, then making it SMALLER, and smaller....and smaller! anyways, it was a fun piece to do, and it came out pretty sweet. he gave me free reign with the rest of the design, and the colours.



I've been using my brand spanking liner the past few days, it's not quite run in perfect, but it was getting there (WAS. past tense) coz i just dropped it on the floor. DOOOOOM! sucks! so tomorrow, i'll start all over, it sounds ok, but the contact and A bar had shifted a lot.... and i aint great at tuning machines at the best of times. my approach is normally if it aint broke....




but here it is! (aint she a beaut!) Ross built it for me (among many others) and i wanna get it running smooth by the time i go to Londumb!

Here's a few more machines Ross made for me. First one was my Christmas pressie last year. Seth Ciferri frame, and other fancy schmancy goodies on it. I love the coils (Thai antique notes). This is running like a champ, love it!




I figured it was far too classy, so we ordered in one of these lil' thumb screws! TOO CUTE! love it!




And here's the partner in crime! )also awesome coils, lurrrrvly!





for some reason this week has been going insanely slow. and i want it to go way faster, coz i got a sweet tattoo booked in on thurs! (sweet in more ways than one!)

pills for the pills for the pils

So, Milo came back in the early hours of the morning, he has a slight infection, apparently nothing that a few pills and regular hot/cold compress' cant fix. he's on 3 different antibiotics at the moment, as well as his pain meds. it's not easy getting a dog as small as him to eat so many pills i tell ya! it's a week to the day since all this shit happened and the vet was shocked to see that he's actually put ON weight! we've been having to feed him so much more, coz he'll keep leaving his pills/picking them out/getting them stuck to the cone round his head etc etc!

Anyways, i've been so lax with uploading pics of recent work, and to be honest i haven't got much to post at the mo, got some nice pieces coming up, but for now, here's this lil' guy.



Hopefully tomorrow i will have a new print to post, i actually finished it last week, but then i got caught up in all this hoo-ha and havent had a minute to get it sorted on the computer.

ok, bed time, it's half four in the morning, and even though we r in the middle of a typhoon signal 9, looks like i'll be going to work tomorrow!

Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away....

If you can use, some exotic booze
Theres a bar in far Bombay!
Come fly with me, we'll fly we'll fly away.

Come fly with me, lets float down to Peru
In lama land, theres a one man band
And he'll toot his flute for you!
Come fly with me, we'll float down in the blue.

Once I get you up there, where the air is rarefied
We'll just glide, starry eyed,
Once I get you up there, I'll be holding you so near
You may here, angels cheer - because were together

Weather wise its such a lovely day
You just say the words, and we'll beat the birds
Down to Acapulco bay
Its perfect, for a flying honeymoon - they say
Come fly with me, we'll fly we'll fly away



OK! So i got my fleeting, flying lady finished and scanned and done and done and DONE!
Will be making prints to take to England, so anyone interested in buying one, pls get in touch. U can e mail me on info@starcrossedtattoo.com

Cheers my Dears!

Love and peas!

Flying so low

OK. So this week, on my day off, i decided to get productive. Productive at stuff other than drinking cider and procrastinating. That's right, this time i drank beer and drew some stuff. I cant remember the last time i sat down and started a picture, and lined it, and got some clolour in one sitting NO BREAKS. i just havent had the time lately, and this time i MADE THE TIME!

so the scan came out really shitty. most the grey shades didnt even show up, so it looks a lot less finished here than in my little sketchbook. i think i'm gonna add a background, nothing fancy, a watercolour wash or 2, then get it re scanned in the proper print place down the road and hopefully it'll come out better!

but til then, here's Cpt. Priscilla...



Not only did i get her almost done all in one go, but i got something else started and half lined too! I think a lot of it was the fact i was sat on my roof in the sweltering heat so it was kinda like a race to the finish so i could go sit downstairs in the air conditioning, or maybe it was the fact that the only thing i had to colour her with were some Copic markers... and maybe the fact that the only colours i had in my pencil case at the time were lilac and grey, so i didnt have to sit around thinking about a million different colour theories worrying i'll always prefer my 2nd choice (ie. the one i didnt do) by the time i finish!

Surely over thinking is a form of over working, and over working is exhausting, so it seems that i have come to the conclusion that even when i am sat with a beer in one hand and my head in the other....... to the untrained eye I'm "doing nothing", but in reality i'm just working far too hard!

Anyways, talking of work, here's a small slice of todays "work pie".



The last few days have been pretty easy going. Fully booked, but easy going, coz it's all been stuff that isnt remotely taxing to draw, so i havent been staying late at work stressing about how to make "this and that" work, or how i'm gonna combine "A" with "B", or how to make something that doesnt even exist look realistic (dont ask, i've had a few teeth grinders in recently.)
The fact that stuff has been going so smoothly worries me though, coz it means it's the calm before the storm, and i know for a fact i have a few pieces coming up that i've shoved so far to the back of my consciousness , that when the time comes for me to draw them, i think my head might explode. Just a warning.......... stand back i say!

sweet as a nut *take 2* and then some!

So ever since i did my "sweet as a nut" donut tattoo, Ross has really wanted one, so here's what i came up with. I have to hand it to him, if it wasn't for him i wouldn't get to see half my stoopid ideas come to life, after all i can only reach so much on myself, and i hate tattooing myself!
I'll probably go back in to tighten some stuff up when it heals, but here's todays tattoodle!



Tomorrow i have allocated a full day for Sham Shui Po'ing (yeah i've made it a verb, deal with it!) I need to try and find some wholesale good-quality t shirts with no side seams to get our new run of t shirts printed on, and nobody has managed to point us in the right direction so far. I'm kinda in a mad crazy rush to get them done, and as Ross is a screen printer by trade, we both thought it would be nice if our new run of shirts is all hand printed. It's turned into quite the headache of the century though, so anyone who knows any good t shirt suppliers (something like fruit of the loom or haines would be perfect), or if anyone knows any good screen print suppliers, pls pls message me!

Just for a lil' taster, here's the new t shirt design i am HOPING to get printed (at least a small run for the UK in August) soon.



Oh, and speaking of August, here's the official spankin' new list of places and dates of where and when i'll be working etc etc.....

ok, i have a crazy hectic schedule while i am over in england in aug. so far, it looks like i'll be working at haunted on holloway rd london, the 11th, 12th and 13th of aug,

then working the norwich convention the 15th and 16th of aug,

then working at flaming 8 in kentish town, london the 20th to the 28th.

anybody interested in booking in for any work by me, pls get in contact sooner than later, as i really want a heads up on what i'll be doing and be able to get some designs prepped out before i travel.

feel free to e mail me at info@starcrossedtattoo.com for any questions/consultations/bookings.
thanks!
julia