Dotwork and Blackwork & More Dots

I just wanted to thank Sonja Hentschel from Punktum Tattoo in Germany and Daniel Martino from Tattoo Mag in Argentina for including my work in these two books which came out similtaniously in Europe and South America this month.

Dotwork tattooing is becoming a world wide phenomenon.

"More Dots"
 is a fine art hardcover edition which explores the art of tattooists specializing in the dotwork technique... no tattoos, just the use of dotwork as art by some of the best tattooists specializing in the technique. Something to grace your bookshelf or coffee table for years to come. The book includes work from Daniel Di Mattia, Cory Ferguson, Gerhard Wiesbeck, Ferank Manseed, Orge "George" Kalodimas, Marco Galdo and Pinkie Leeders amongst others. I also really liked the Artists List in the back of the book which connected the names to thumbnails of the designs so you could better set faces to the artwork.

The Knight of Pentacles

A design I did based on The Tjängvides Stone from Gotland, Sweden
This design was used in the Tattoo Tarot Project by Astrid Köpfler

The Knight of Wands

A design I did based on The Möjbro Stone from Gotland Sweden
This design was used in the Tattoo Tarot Project by Astrid Köpfler

Just Sofie's Vendal Bird
Sofie has been at Skin&Bone for a little over half a year and is now beginning to tattoo 

This design she made while doing a 2 week intership/exchange at my old studio Kunsten på Kroppen. Full credit has to be given to Kai Faust for pushing her to this level of work.
I submitted this design along with my own as I think that it represents what we do at Skin&Bone and  holds its own amongst some of the best dotwork tattooists around. 

A Vendal bird with Polynesian patterns with a background of Urnes animals framed with 3 types of Celtic borders... key patterns, spirals and knotwork.

Alot of things to combine into a coherent piece of work

A collaboration piece I did with Vincent Hocquet for an exhibition of water themed bodysuits. I didn't have time to do an original piece on such short notice so I gave my drawing of "Thor's Fishing Tour" for Vincent to play a little with and make a study of a bodysuit with.

Loki at Ragnarok

My Loki design was used as the introduction to the chapter on symbols.

Really turned out beautiful in the negative gold.

Sunship

An original design based on Sunship petroglyphs from the Scandinavian Bronzeage combined with some geometric dotwork

The Cosmic Wedding

A piece I did for a Valentine exhibition at the Brighton Tattoo Convention a few years back combining a couple classic Nordic petroglyph designs with a Nordic flower pattern done in dotwork 

"Dotwork & Blackwork"

 is a showcase of some of the best Tribal and Dotwork artists to grace the pages of Tattoo Mag in South America and is organized into chapters on Colour, Black&White, Patterns and Tattoos. Artists include Rory Keating, Taku Oshima, Steve Ma Ching, Kike Bugni, Nazareno Tubaro and Chaim Machlev just to name a few. The book really gives you a a broad spectrum of what is happening in Dotwork and Blackwork tattooing today with the names, styles and mediums all in an affordable paperback version.

The Dotwork & Blackwork book did a couple nice 2 page spreads of my designs

Loki bound until Ragnarok across from Odin astride Sleipner

Two versions of Thor

Thor's Fishing Tour and Vetruvian Thor

Vetruvian Thor

This was a painting I did for the Florence Tattoo Convention poster last year based on Leonardo Da Vinci's Vetruvian Man
Like my earlier Blood Gods series I will also be doing a Vetruvian version of Odin and Loki as well

Aside from artwork the book also features a chapter on tattoos as well. Here is a larger project I did of the god Tyr binding the Fenris Wolf. 

Tyr sacrifices his hand in exchange for placing a chain around the wolf's neck, who is then bound until the time of Ragnarok

Alex's backpiece of Yggdrasil the World Tree. Nine brances to hold the 9 worlds with the Midgaards Serpent intwined around them while the Dragon Nilhögg gnaws at the roots below