Well there were a few changes at the London Convention this year... most notably the Traditional Hand Tattooing room was moved from the enterance to a larger room in the far back corner of the venue. This wasn't so much due to lack of room for the tattooists, but rather due to fire regulations, as the Traditional room has always had the largest number of visitors. This year was no exception... and as the Convention had 11000 come through the door on Saturday alone, it was probably a wise move. Miki Vialetto (the organizer) came by personally on opening day just to check and make sure that everything was all right :-)
It was great to see all of our friends again... unfortunately due to the busy work schedule I missed catching up with several and never saw more of London than the hotel room and the Hand tattooing room :-(
It was great to see Durga again and present him with 3 awards I've won for the Titi Boug tattoo he did on my thighs a few years back when visiting Skin&Bone.
Brent McCown and Steffi were also there... I've been travelling alot with Brent the last couple years and we exchanged tools at this years convention as a sign of respect for each others work :-) Brent also won a well deserved 1st and 3rd place for Best Ornamental Tattoo while I completed our hat trick by placing 2nd :-)
Mathias Reuss was also there promoting his new book "Spiritual Skin: Magical Tattoos and Scarification" written by Lars Krutak. I'm very proud to have been mentioned in the book as well as having several of my tattoos shown :-) Mathias was around to give complimentary copies of the book out to all of the hand tattooists who are keeping these traditions alive... Thank you Mathias :-) These books will be available along with Edition Reuss' other titles both through Mathias' homepage:
www.editionreuss.de or at Skin&Bone
Finally... Pili Moó aproached me about perhaps coming on a guest visit to Skin&Bone next year when it is a little warmer :-).
Xoil of Needleside Tattoo dropped by about a tattoo (which neither of us had time to do) I wrote an article on Xoil for Z-Tattoo about a year back but this was the first time we had actually met :-)
The Ricci Sisters came down from Scotland to visit :-) We're hoping Rafaella will come back for another guest visit to Skin&Bone soon.
Filip Leu and his lovely wife Titine dropped by late Sunday to say hej, watch me work and talk a bit...
and Alex Binnie was also past to talk about coming on a visit to Copenhagen and perhaps displaying his recent woodcut prints at Skin&Bone... so it seems the the studio is getting a good reputation in the mere 3 years that we have been open :-)
I'll present more news on the blog as I get it :-)
Pictish Wild Boar Rampant
Took inspiration fron the Pictish picture stones in Scotland however I drew the boar "rampant" (standing on rear legs) so we could make it larger in the space provided. He intends to get a rampant Pictish Bull on the other shoulderblade at a later point.
I love these designs which are perfect for hand tattooing, with or without the dotshading
Tattooing a bound rune design... a memorial tattoo for his recently deceased daughter
A powertful symbol and a very emotional moment
Inuit Sewing... I've been doing this technique for 15 years but don't use it too often. However under the right circumstances... In this case an anthropologist collegue of my friend Lars Krutak wanted to experience the sewing and hand poking
Finished experiment... sewing vs handpoking.
We used natural soot pigment for both tattoos and she will keep me updated as to the results over time
Tattooed this dragon on Lewis a few years back at Skin&Bone
The result of a Inuit sewn design... a variation of the Ægir's Hjelm
Had a client waiting patiently for 2 days to see if I had time to tattoo him.
Had to knock this Hugin & Munin design out in just a a few hours before close on Sunday.
Would have liked to have done it a little darker, but more can be added later and I think the lines were so clean that it could hold up to a little less shading
Pili Moó doing what he does best :-)
Durga tapping in a Borneo rose
The new hand tapping room was a little colder than the old location... especially if you're dressed for the tropical jungle. Being of Viking stock it wasn't a problem for myself... however most of the other hand tattooists come from warmer climates and some of them were suffering
Sanya from The Ohman Tattoo Project in Mexico with her neck just tattooed by Xed le Head. They tattooed all night and finished only a few hours before the convention opened again on Sunday at noon. Almost too tired to tattoo :-)
Alex, Loki and I up on scene being presented with 2nd prize for Ornamental by Sabina Kelly
We just finished Alex's Yggdrasil back piece last month, so it was a great to win something on the first showing... especially at a convention of the level of London. I just wanted to thank Alex for coming over to show it, as I don't get an opportunity to show my work abroad too often
My friend Brent McCown took 1st and 3rd place... so there was much celebrating in the Tribal Camp that night :-)
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