Yes, it is indeed time for a new post, wouldn’t you agree?
Man there has been a lot going on since the last post… As you might have noticed, the galleries are down… I decided not to renew the license with SlideshowPro because A) the galleries don’t really work the way I want them to, and B) the new website won’t utilize SSP so there is no need to pay for a new license that I will not be using, you know? So all you can see right now is the stuff in the blog section and until the new site is ready (which is my own fault for lagging the updates). There’s been so much to do these past weeks that I have just been lazy with the updates but that is all about to change… I know i say that a lot, but with the new studio, there will be updates every week…
Did I say new studio?
Why yes, yes I did…. The NEW Left Hand Black studio will be opening early next year (shooting for January) and will be open to the public! No more private studio for me! I am sick of not seeing the sun, I am sick of not letting people come in whenever they want, and did I mention I am sick of not seeing the sun!? For those of you that don’t know, my studio now is inside a multi-use building and has no windows to the outside world… I feel like Tom Hanks in Joe Vs. the Volcano with his brain-cloud thing, hahaha… Great movie by the way…
Anyway, the new 1300sqft studio will be a full custom tattoo studio and art gallery… As for other artists, there will be 2 to 3 other artists depending on who I hire and we’ll also have a booth for traveling artists so my friends from all over the world can come to San Diego and tattoo and see what the west coast is all about! The gallery side of the business will be ran by my old lady and she plans on having art shows every month or two and will have exclusive prints from other artists and original art pieces for sale as well…
This is a pretty big deal… The studio will be in San Diego proper… No more north county business. You will be able to come by and see the books, see the weird shit I collect in person, see fantastic art from artists all over the world, and get awesome tattoos! What more could you ask for!?!?
I’ll post the address and the details on the grand opening when I get closer to opening… Right now it’s all about gutting the place and starting over… polishing the concrete floors… painting… wall-papering… creeperizing… hahaha… you know the drill.
In other news Crystal and I went to Orlando, Florida with some friends from PA, and TX… And one from DC… 13 of us all up in DisneyWorlds ass for a few days… and 1 day of Universal Studios… All in all it was a great trip but I have to say, getting 13 people all on one time schedule proved to be quite the task! Everyone on different pee schedules, different eat schedules, sleep schedules, showers… Definitely stressful, but fun as all hell! DisneyWorld is way different than Disneyland… It’s broken into a bunch of parks that are all connected but separate… Magic Kingdom was cool and was the most like our regular Disneyland but some of the rides are in other parks… I am not gonna spend all the time talking about how different each park was because it could go on forever… Here is my brief synapses… Magic Kingdom, awesome. Hollywood Studios, awesome. Animal Kingdom, fantastic. Epcot Center, bullshit. Hahahaha. Epcot was supposed to be all futuristic when they made it in the 70′s but it’s all shit that already happened in the 80′s… Just super out-dated is all… The golf-ball thing was rad to see in person though… And I guess they were having their food and wine celebration so they had all these kiosks set up with food and drink from all the different countries that you would walk past… Some pretty great stuff there but I have to say, Germany definitely won… Bratwursts and German beer… How could you go wrong?
Crystal and I on day one of the trip…. Lazy Hasili in the background there…
Mike hangin’ with his kind…
The DisneyWorld haunted mansion is way crazier looking than ours…
Their Magic Castle is like 5 times the size of ours as well…
I planked a speeder…
Unfortunately this is how it ended up…
My favorite part about the east coast…
Mike is waiting to cuddle…
Just one of the pics of us waiting in line… Reject peeking over like a creeper…
John and his creepy doll hand with a dino-head on it…
Elvis and I touching wieners in the German side of Epcot… So delicious.
Elvis comparing his tiger stripes to Tiggers… I think Pooh doesn’t feel good.
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Universal Studios was awesome, too… The rides are obviously way better than anything that Disney had but they also had a whole Dr. Suess land and the Harry Potter land… Which, I have to say… I don’t really care for the Harry Potter movies or anything like that, but that Harry Potter ride was insane! Definitely one of the best rides I have ever been on! Not a roller coaster at all, you’re on like a servo-arm thing that swings you around through different areas and then in front of giant screens and stuff… Hard to describe but trust me that was amazing! The wait time is gnar but there is a lot to see and do and watch while you wait so it goes by really fast… I highly recommend it, even if you don’t like Harry Potter… Just to see how the new rides are…
Hogwart’s Castle… Harry Potter land is nuts, man… A full atmosphere, it’s amazing!
John was so thrilled to be in Harry Potter land he was speechless the entire time… Jake, didn’t seem to care… haha
Elvis can’t fit the safety belt around himself on the caro-suess-sel in Dr. Suess Land… I don’t think it was the ride’s fault…
Crystal enjoying the carousel while Jake and Reject seem to have way more fun than they should!
I got to ride the carousel as well… I look like a homeless man, hahahaha…
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We took a little bit of time in Florida to go shoot guns as well… If there are guns, I want to shoot them…
John firing the FNH .45 acp. Caught it right as he fired…
Mike shooting the AR-15…
Crystal shooting the Coonan .357 M1911… An amazing gun! I want one!
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Coming home we spent some time decorating our engagement party invites and envelopes… I had a painting to do for the EVERYTHING WENT BLACK art show… A tribute to Black Flag. I did a piece titled “REVENGE” for the show… 62″x24″ on haggly garage wood… took about 3 solid nights of painting, but I am pretty happy with it!
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Went to a Halloween party at my buddy Shea’s house… I went as Princess Leia, and Crystal went as Obi Wan Kenobi… Pretty disgusting, hahahaha… I won “scariest costume” hahaha… How did that happen?
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Crystal and I went to the 9th annual Montreal Art & Tattoo Expo that I do every year… Had a blast as usual! What is it about Montreal that kicks so much ass!?!? Of course, I shared the booth with the magical and fantabulous Adam Hathorn which always makes any trip even more amazing! We opened up the dividers and had Rus Laich, Scott Althen, and Ron Henry Wells all in one big panel of awesomeness! It was a fantastic time! I didn’t win any “tattoo of the day” contests, unfortunately, but I did win an award for “best sleeve” for the zombie virgin mary sleeve I did on Crystal! So that was a nice bonus! We had a great time with all the TattooMania guys and Simon showed us his amazing hospitality as always! I can’t imagine ever not doing that show! I love it! I’ll be doing one of the posters for next year’s convention as well so keep your eye open for that! They’re gonna have 3 artists do a poster for their 10th anniversary convention… A Euro guy, a Quebec guy, and an American… I get to be the American!!! I am so stoked!!! I have never been asked to do a convention poster before!!! I hope I make them proud!
Did this awesome thigh piece at the convention all in one shot on Glenn Underwood… He sat like a CHAMP!!! He was definitely dying by the end of it, hahaha. Can you blame him? That last section was all up in his goodness… Looks good man! Hope you made it home safe! See you next year!
Here’s a sweet zombie pig I did on a foot at the Montreal convention… One shot one kill… Definitely a fun one to do! Next year we are going to do the other foot, a zombie rooster! Kind of a new zombie twist on the old pig and rooster foot piece…
A quick little freehand one-shot tattoo on the inside of an arm… I wish I could remember the guy’s name he’s kind of a big deal graffiti artist/artist in Montreal… Oh well, this blog is about me, not him, hahaha!
Here’s a rad thigh piece I did on the last day of the convention! “The Wichin’ Hour” which is a rad triple-decker sammich with a pickle and tomato and cheese and meats and awesomeness!!! All in one shot, as is customary for conventions… Gotta get that shit done! She sat like a champ and because of that, we got it all done and looking good!!! Might do the other thigh next year… That’s the rumor anyway… We’ll see how that goes?
Here’s a quick little rib piece I did in Montreal at TattooMania after the convention… Definitely a fun one! Took a little longer than I expected but it was worth it! I didn’t do that sweet tribal piece though, unfortunately…
I forgot to add that I won 1st Place in the “Best Sleeve” competition!!! The zombie virgin mary sleeve that I did on my lovely fiancee Crystal went up against about 30 or more sleeves and took the gold! Super stoked to win that one and I am honored to recieve it! Good work, Crystal, on winning that one without showing the judges your boobs like I asked you to, hahaha!
Here is the TattooMania tattoo that I got from the owner of the studio, Pierre… This is a tattoo that you earn… I am honored to have it, and I will proudly flip it out when I need to (it’s on my middle finger, haha). Seriously though, I am stoked to be part of the extended TattooMania family and I can’t wait to come back!
Last picture from the Montreal section… These are my new babies! Jealous much!? hahaha… I don’t think spending 1100 bucks on machines that weekend made my old lady happy, but it had to be done…
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Shit man, what else… Went caming up in Cuyamaca and got snowed in and froze my ass off with my old lady and some close friends… That was fun… Did a bunch of tattoos that you haven’t seen yet unless you follow me on Instagram… If you don’t, look me up under @lefthandblack and see what you have been missing, haha… I like Instagram… easy to post and there are a ton of awesome tattoo artists on there so we get to see what everyone is doing! Definitely my favorite app of the year…
Here’s some other tattoo pics you might have missed…
Here’s a big ole thigh piece I did on my assistant Rachael… Gonna add some background stuff soon.
Start of a zombie lower half sleeve…
A sleever that I am STILL working on… 2 hours at a time… It will get finished eventually.
Here’s a rad hand tatter I did… I colored it recently, but the pic was kinda washed out so I will post better shots when it is healed…
Here’s a big ass owl half-sleever I started a few months ago… Looking forward to coloring that beast in when she gets back from Thailand…
Check out this gnarly sandwich I got over at the WichWich… 5 meats, 3 cheeses, olives, cheese-whiz, jalepenos… Or should I just say HEAVEN… Yeah, that’s more like it.
Super washed out pic of a painting I did for my buddy Geoff’s birthday… He’s a teacher, thus, the apple… A math teacher, thus, the faulty equation… A Bad Religion fan at that, thus, the 1+1=5… Do you know the lyric?
This is a half sleever I started on my buddy Josh… Been a while since we started this guy, but Josh is always on tour so it’s hard to get our schedules in line… We do have another appointment lined up, so I guess you’ll get to see more sooner than later…
Lastly, we have a demon cupcake eating a bagel… This piece is on my fiancee Crystal and was thought up on a whim… We were flying to Washington state to visit family and Crystal was telling me random things to draw and this was one of them! Other drawings include a duck with a turtle-neck sweater and pipe, a demon leprechaun, a zombie bunny, a philanthropist whale, and plenty of others I can’t recall at the moment… I love random requests, so feel free to throw some at me!
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I don’t really know what else to write other than, keep an eye out for the new updates on the new studio and please keep checking in anyway as the new HTML5 site will be up and running soon and it’s gonna be rad! I promise, new updates, more frequently…
Until then, remain on the level…
TURK
