Ram Skull

A mix of sigil work and Neo Traditional.
This client wanted a Neo Traditional ram skull with sigils and a book on fire.

This was fun.

Divinity School

Divinity School.

This has been quite the adventure.  I moved my family to Maui Hawaii on a promise of ownership and a better quality of life.  Maui is the island of runaway adults that fit into a few categories.  We find ourselves flowing into the category of simply being in love with the Pacific Ocean here.  We dive, surf, fish, snorkel, and enjoy as much of the ocean we can as often as we can.

I do not think I can remember a time where I worked as hard as I am these days.  I know that everything I am doing now will secure my entire future; that is if it all works out remotely close to my plan.  A plan is something we all have, but it is more like a vision or a vision board.  Those bordering self help creations of our dreams, our inner self vomited into a collage that’s glued together  with regret and hopelessness.  A vision of your future self is pure vanity.   I call all of that bullshit.  Be, it is that easy.  I find just being here right now today in this moment as I am the only way.

The stress-less plan, the unconstrained plan, the only plan that works is not really a plan at all.  Just figure it out as you go, do what works and stop doing what does not.  So here we are, we jumped to Maui with a promise, and so far it is absolutely working in our favor.

We are still in the beginning of this new adventure, and I am really excited to see where we are in 5 years.  I like our plan to be as flexible as possible, as adaptable as possible, and as easy going as we can be.  So far working hard and being open to anything has been serving us very well.

Aloha

Flash

I made this one just for fun.

Not awesome but it took 20 min and was fun.

Stick Figure

I have very little time to post these days.  This was just too fun not to, and it is by far the most complicated tattoo produced by anyone this year.

Mahalo.

Machine Adjustments

So, after using my new liner machine from forward tattoo I decided to make a few changes. It wasn’t hitting like I feel a liner should.

First off I put some $ on it. Nuff said.

Secondly I adjusted the gap behind the armature bar and made it smaller like a liner is intended. And then just set my gap for the contact so it hit harder.

No luck, but this liner is a great shader.

I am sure I will keep adjusting this machine until I dial it in as I like it.

New tattoo machine from Forward Tattoo

So I was just surfing the net and came across Forward Tattoo, a machine builder selling custom machines. So I said fuck it and bought a new tattoo machine from them.

The first thing I noticed that I do not like about this machine is that it has no money on it.  That is probably because this machine builder doesn't know why that is even a thing.  

You have to have $ on your $ maker.

It is really pretty but can it do the job of a Cain machine?  I had them wrap it in Wassily Kandinsky "Composition #8" prints.  Composition #8 is my absolute favorite painting of all time and well why the hell not.

I will test this good looking machine out for the next few weeks to see how I feel about it.

Maui, I am a compositionalist.

I have lived on Maui for a full year now.

Moving my family here was one of the best choices I have ever made.  I needed to get away from the city, the ratrace, the bullshit, the traffic...

...so we sold everything and moved to one of the most remote places on the planet.

We live in a fairly remote part of the island, and I have become a Napili hermit simply because where I live is beautiful, calm, quite, and I have no need to go anywhere else.

I am still a compositionalist, but I have been expanding my vocabulary.

I have been exploring water color painting as a study for oils.  I have also been tattooing on Maui.  The last year has been a great year of research for my new series of paintings, exploring artistic mediums that I have seldom used, and slowing down my life in general as I enjoy my family and our life here on the island.  

Moving here was a risk, but not that much of a risk.  I had a good job lined up tattooing with Trevor and the promise that the shop will be mine when I am ready.  I am not ready yet, my game is not enough yet, but as soon as I build a reputation here I will be ready.  Thats just going to take time, and I will take it one client at a time.

I am not ready to begin the mental work for my "Peloponnesian War" painting.  I am just going to tattoo and watercolor until my mind is clear for it.  Now, after a full year of living on the island I feel that I am reenergized enough to start my next series of oil paintings.  I will continue to post here on this blog as it relates to oil painting.

Even Caravaggio loves living as artists on Maui.

Eagle

This was fun.

Mahalo.

Dusting off Tattoo Machines

I took these bad boys out of the box today.

I will need to tune and clean them.

Two new Aaron Cain tattoo machines

I just received two new tattoo machines from Aaron Cain, and they are pretty good.

http://www.aaroncain.com 

I got a rino liner and shadder.

Both of these hit pretty hard, and I can see them piercing the skin like butter at the right speed.  I am going to have to play with them a bit to get used to them and to adjust them to my needs.  I like it when my machine hits like it wants to break cement at low speed.  If my machine can punch through with ease at a low speed then they keep up with me and I don't have to keep up with the machine.

I like it when I can just go over a line one time, slowly pulling the entire line.  I normally run my machines pretty slow; 7.5 volts on a critical to 8.5 volts.  

Now its time to have some fun with these, and if I like them I will buy more.

Memorial

I Like this tattoo.

Mahalo.