VALKYRIE in Roseville...

Been rolling right along at the shop- me and Jessie ventured off to a tattoo convention last weekend. It was in Roseville by Sacramento...
It was hot during the day, warm at night- almost a full moon over the bands that played by the beer garden on the fair grounds (which was right next to a jail)
Interesting, I know. 

Got my knuckles done finally.

Some paintings I worked on for the art show part of the convention. They were for sale but I didn't have any takers. I have one more small painting I did of a Valkyrie- it made it onto the Instagram page...

I made some new friends- two in particular. My neighbor, Spider he was really cool. He started tattooing in jail- made his own machines and ink and once he got out, he continued tattooing- got professional. He was great. Such a pal, he let me use his printer to print my art. I usually don't bring a ton of equipment to shows, although it would help out a lot.
To see more pics from Convention follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/valkyrie_tattooing

From the heart

I often think how grateful I am that somehow it was in my soul before being brought into this world or perhaps even genetically, I was/am an artist. Creating art really is the one thing that I have,  for anything that comes up in my life. During dark times and light, I always have my art and music to get me thru- any-fucking-thing. Being a creative person is awesome because there is a therapeutic release and healing that occurs thru making art. And I get to make a living from it too!
I think one main reason for artists that are compelled to make art is that you simply have to, it's like instinct. You just do it and sometimes you don't even know why.
It is unfortunate for some humans that have a will and a want but they just sit idle and don't execute. You have this one life that is pretty short and the time to get up off your ass and do shit is NOW. 

My distraction

 Even now as a Mum, I feel more determined to have something to show for. Before her I tattooed for myself- trying to prove to myself and my peers that I CAN put on a nice tattoo. Now, I tattoo for Sonja. I have legacy now and I need to be the ultimate example for her. Odin, as if tattooing alone wasn't enough pressure!

I often say to others in my field:   

" tattooing is the MOST important thing in the world, and at the same time, tattooing is NOT the most important thing".

Some sexyness

I am in complete awe and gratitude that I get to do this every day and  that I receive so much trust from these folks I get to touch- I can only hope that my friends and family and clients get to do what they love to do and feel fulfilled by what they do and are able to have close, caring relationships in their work field as I do.


On another note, I finally received my green belt in karate. Only took me a year and half but I got it and I have the good excuse of having a baby and running a shop. One more step closer to black and weapons training!

Flower power

 A staple in tattooing is being able to properly execute flowers. As long as I have been tattooing I have been asked to do flowers for people.I have been practicing them steadily for the past 15 years and each time I have the chance to do them I try to make them better than the last.
I have seen other tattoos done by other artists that I feel fall short for a variety of reasons; like bad placement- flowers should enhance the natural curves and shape of the body. If they are placed awkwardly, this can really kill a tattoo(and your body part) in a bad way. Organic, natural placement with flow is very crucial to nailing flowers. Proper sizing is also very important. Flowers that have a lot going on with color and petal shape or detail should be done in a size so you can achieve these details or else the tattoo will fall to shit and not be set up to re-do it in the future if necessary.
Also color choice for flowers is also very important to get right- this will depend on the persons skin tone, placement of design and what kind of life style the person wearing the tattoo has...I am showing a variety of styles and executions of flowers here and I will explain why I choose to do them they way I have after talking with the client and what their needs were.

 In these lillys I used very little black because she was so fair- skinned that a nice line to hold the shape of the lilly together works just fine. I actually saw this tattoo about 2 years after I did it and it looks exactly the same.

The most popular type of Calla Lily is white. White has a hard time showing up on the skin, it is known to yellow, so here I have gone from a soft lavendar shade faded to the white and used the dark black washed out to help create contrast between the white and pop out the Calla Lily.

In this magnolia branch here, I under shaded all my color with some light black and grey to add depth to my color. I use this technique often but her skin is really fair so I don't have to use as heavy as a black here. I also think this has more of a painterly style to it.

Here is a black and grey lilly thigh piece. I put my black shade behind the lilly because I almost never do black in the back ground on black on the foreground. That technique rarely works in my opinion because it washes out the front and back out and just muddles it making it flat.

On these forget-me-knots, they are a very soft blue in reality so I got creative with the leaves and added black tips in the leaves to create some strength on the vine part. I often choose not to do a back ground on flowers that are viney because that will take away from the trailing effect of the floral work. It is nice to see the negative skin shapes.

These lillies I did many years ago- about 8 I think. This piece could use a back ground but her skin is not the fairest so leaving the back ground open can leave some airiness in case she tans- more we don't want it to look like a patch on her arm. I used actual black in the flowers but I used it to go into my darker pinks and then to lighter pinks.

Here is a variety of several different flowers to form a sleeve. Here I did all the black in the back ground so each of the flowers could pop out on their own and not compete with each other. When doing several flowers on one piece you need to make sure that there is varied sizes and the composition is pieced together nicely and pulled together in a cohesive way. Overlapping and layering is important to do as well because otherwise it looks half-assed or not well thought thru.

On this rose I was brave and went all out as to not even do any black in it. I fell that her skin is so fair we can get away with this look. I used very soft grey around the edges- I think if this faded a lot in the future I would just re-touch it, treating it the same way. I don't think it is always wise to shade something really dark out of fear of it fading in the future- (tattoos naturally do that over time). If the tattoo design is drawn nicely touching it up in the future is very easy. I rather do that every 5 years to enjoy this look now.