Københavns Middelalder Marked 2013

Well we once again had a lovely weekend at the Copenhagen Medieval Market in Valby Parken. Despite rain on Sunday the most important was that it was sunny both for the setting up and taking down of the tent. Missed having my friend Kai there, but he had to cover the Faroe Island Convention that we were at last year. However it was cool to have visits from Kai's apprentice Markus as well as two other Top Viking Tattooists... Jesper Mann and Lars Martinen.

 Here are a few photos of the weekend. 

www.kmm.dk

Enjoy :-) 

Did this Vejviser on John the first day... inspired by a piece which I had done on Lars Krutak a few months ago. I have nothing against repeating historical designs as they are not mine to start with. I think of it as "Viking Flash" and although I've done dozens of these designs (and hundreds of other tattooists have used them as well) I think it still is far more interesting than the most original dolphin design :-) Aside from the actual historical vejviser I just freehanded my own spiral to make it a little more individual from person to person

An older Flash design of mine depicting Thor's hammer with the Midgaardsorm wrapped around. The Nordic sagas have many stories about Thor's battles with his nemesis. It was finally nice to do a hand poked version of this :-) I was also a little proud as the client, Lars has sleaves, chest and back all tattooed by Henning Jørgensen from Royal Tattoo

A closeup to show the detail... simple, clean and fast

A client I tattooed last year with a freehand version of the Fenris Wolf... here shown bound by the chain Gleipner until the time of Ragnarok. The Midgaardsorm and Fenris Wolf are both offspring of Loki and the Giantess Angrboda 
  

A serpent triskele that I tattooed on Minna several years back on Bornholm... still looking good after all these years :-)

Tomak is a very talented Blacksmith from Poland and has been involved with Viking, Medieval and Native American re-enactment for many years. We tattooed Tomek with a design inspired from the Iroquous and Woodland Cree... however they could just as easily be Viking, Polynesian or something other. We tattooed his first arm at Mosegaard last year and took the opportunity to finish the set this year. Tomek's forearms are muscular, thick and hard... it took me approximately twice the time I thought it would take to make this tattoo :-)

 Fellow Viking tattooist Jesper Mann sleeping while getting his chest tattooed
(actually the sunglasses were just to hide the tears :-)

I promised Jesper not to show his tattoo online (it is his own design, I'm just the craftsman)... however he agreed to let me show a closeup so you could see the detail :-)

Four days at the market, followed by four minutes in the bath...

Goodnight :-)

Studio photos

Google contacted us a couple months back about adding some of the shops on Jægersborggade to their Maps function. The funny thing about this is that they didn't just want to show the shops from the outside, but actually wanted to give viewers the opportunity to come in and look around. At first I was a little reluctant as it seems a little Orwellian for my taste... however as I've been a little lax in posting photos of the studio on the www.skinandbone.dk  homepage and I also have nothing against people coming to visit the studio, I figured we'd give it a shot.

Here's the link if you want a look:

https://www.google.com/maps?layer=c&z=17&sll=55.693324,12.542954&cid=-3568643470886467225&panoid=-StZbJNd0xAAAAQIt2OguQ&cbp=13,200.10762392997214,,0,0&q=skin+%26+bone+j%C3%A6gersborggade&sa=X&ei=LzKdUcaFDYbTtAaSj4DwBQ&ved=0CHUQoB8wCg

https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=da&tab=ww#hl=da&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=skin+%26+bone+j%C3%A6gersborggade&oq=skin+%26+bone+j%C3%A6&gs_l=hp.3.0.0i10i30.1541.12134.0.13485.14.13.0.1.1.0.80.733.13.13.0...0.0...1c.1.14.psy-ab.7dJTZmkvE4Q&pbx=1&fp=1&biw=1866&bih=1032&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&cad=b

Of course we're also hoping that you'll come in person as well :-)

P.S. see how many Cirkelines you can find... there will be a quiz :-)

 Yes... 3 and a half years and I still haven't gotten a sign :-)

Studio facade

Waiting room

Books, magazines and wall of fame :-)

 My work station

 Library

 More books... for thought and memory

Drawing station

It's sort og funny using the Maps function as you can see ghosts of the photographer in several reflected surfaces. However due to facial recognition programs all peoples features are blurred. I found this really entertaining when looking in my work area and saw that a charcoal drawing of Frankenstein's Monster done for me by Alex at Rites of Passage was so life like that the program blurred it as well to protect the Monster's identity :-)
All photos taken by Søren Kristensen wwwSOLK.dk

Dr. Lars Krutak lecture: "Written in Skin" The Symbol, Significance and Practice of Indigenous Tattooing

Dr. Lars Krutak, tattoo anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institute and host of the Discovery Channel’s “Tattoo Hunter” series will be joining us at Skin&Bone to give a lecture on the history of indigenous tattoo practices around the world.

Here is a little preview of Lars Krutak himself:

http://sacredskin.tv/2013/04/17/florence-tattoo-convention-dr-lars-krutak-on-his-new-book-magical-tattoos-scarification/

After the lecture there will be opportunity to ask questions or get a signed copy of one of Lars’ many books

www.larskrutak.com

Skin&Bone

Saturday the 8^th of June at 19:00

Jægersborggade 47/49 kld

2200 København N

www.skinandbone.dk

Inkslingers: Under Huden (Turbine Publishing 2013)

Well, Jacob Schultz from the Copenhagen Ink Fest just finished editing and publishing a book on a few of the artists attending the festival. If the publication sells well there are thoughts of releasing an English version as well as a second edition featuring more of the incredible artists who have come to Copenhagen. Aside myself there are also many friends, Jon Pall from Iceland, Derek Baker from South Africa, Bob Tyrell from USA and Kai Faust from Germany. I have a few copies in the studio... otherwise they can be found at most book stores.
I found the text a little hard to follow at times as they sent each artist a list of questions to be answered, but then removed the questions when printed. Makes to seem like the unconnected ramblings of aging tattooists at times... but then again most of us are :-)

Copenhagen Ink Fest 2013

Well, another Ink Fest has come and gone. I just wanted to thank all my friends, famly and clients for making it a wonderful experience. Peter, John, Jesper, Alex and Frans for showing their tattoos... Kim for being in the right place at the right time Pernille, Henriette and Moshe for letting me do some incredible work on them. My friend Kai for supplying Jægermester and a beautiful Viking helmet for first prize in Tribal/Celtic. and especially Nanna... because it is hard to tattoo without a right arm 

Did this Haida Thunderbird on Pernille the first day... I tattooed the same design on her father last month.

 Sort of a father/daughter thing :-)

Kai and Mick talk while I tattoo Henriette on day 2

10 hours outlining on Henriette... she sat like a rock (despite the hangover) but we were both finished by the end of the day

 I finished up Moshe's Haida Dogfish on day 3 to accompany the Mountain Goat we did last month. We just have to add some bird heads above the wings to tie it together and perhaps extend the wings a bit with some dotwork 

Peter, John, Henriette, Jesper, myself, Alex, Frans and Kim after the competition for Tribal/Celtic

A better photo of the winning tattoo... 

Yggdrasil with the Midgaardsorm in the branches while Nidhugg lurks below

Alex Binnie: "The Woodcut Portraits"

Well to kick off the Ink Fest weekend Skin&Bone held an open house and exhibition.

There has really gone too long between our exhibits and Ink Fest was the perfect chance to drink wine and stroke our goatees while pretending to be cultured :-)

I just wanted to thank all of our family and friends who attended... what was originally planned to end at 22:00 ended up going until 3:00 AM  

The exhibition was a collection of Alex Binnie's woodcut portraits which he has produced over the last several years and finally showed all 36 in London last September. Aside from the prints we also had books of the show of which there are still a couple left.

The portraits are all of known tattooists and are printed on Japanese paper using an old Victorian printing press.

Jean Michel Manutea and I relaxing before the opening

The portraits are quite amazing as the shading is done using only lines of textures and patterns which are extremely intricate and in some cases the people arn't even recognizable until you step far enough away. 

The exhibition will be on display until next month.

Acquisitions, Paris/Easter 2013

Well... we took a much needed trip to Paris for Easter.

No machines, no conventions... just vacation :-)

Sunshine, galleries , cafés, bookshops and antique stores

Loki with popcorn in hand at the bottom of the "Gaffel Tårn"

Bought this book many years ago when visiting the Muséum National D'histoire Naturelle in Paris. This museum has one of the greatest collections of sketetons I have ever seen and is situated in the Jardin royal des plantes médicinales (Royal Medicinal Plant Garden)

A view as you enter the main hall

Claire gave me a few of her Curio Cabinet books... it was a great inspiration for my own collection

and a second book

This is one of my own books of eight collectors of curios... several Russian collections included

The Musée de quai Branly had an excellent exhibition on Paul Jacoulet's woodcut prints and water colours. He travelled thoughout Japan and Indonesia recording alot of now lost tattooing designs. The exhibition was co-coordinated by Sebastien Galliot who I met in Frankfurt the previous week and suggested I take it in. Aside from having a play in the number of tattoo images used, Sebastien also wrote the chapter on tattooing for the exhibition book :-)

• 
  

If you are familiar with "Hey" magazine which focuses on modern and pop art you can just imagine the type of work displayed at the second exhibition they have curated in the last few years. This years show was like a "who's who" of artists inspirational to modern tattooing. Windsor McCay, Joe Coleman, H.R. Geiger and Jack Kirby along with photos by Herbert Hoffman and paintings of Mike Davis were just a few of the dozens of artists represented at the Musée de la Halle St Pierre

Unfortunately the exhibition forbid taking photos... so we bought the book :-)
Luckily we were taking the train this time, as we went well over our carry on weight allowance

Artistic Process

With the travelling and convention schedule I haven't had time to post all that I've been up to... however these are a few newly finished pieces

Enjoy :-) 

 

Finished up this little dragon on a Swedish soldier the other week. He wanted the Cobblestone scales which I've developed over the years, but instead of just putting them in even rows and shapes I opted for a little more variety. I guess you could call this a "Тетрис Dragon"

Finally finished up the last hour of this piece on René

Crann Bethadh/Yggdrasil hybrid... done using a combination of dotwork and hatch shading.

I used large dots in the dragon to give it a subteranian feel and continued the technique in the acorns to even out the piece

A new hand poked piece based on Celtic patterns engraved on silver bracelets. We've included an owl, female fertility symbol and a triskele as well as other ornamental patterns to fill the rest of the arm

and a photo of the inspiration

 and finally finished up this dragon after 2 visits on a Swiss client