Tattooed by Tony

Tony D'Annessa is an older gentleman that tattoos at PSC in Montreal. According to him, he's the oldest and longest-working tattooer in Canada (about 53 years). Back in March I was in Montreal with a friend and had the pleasure of meeting and getting tattooed by Tony. At first he was all business and rather quiet. The small hummingbird flash I'd selected to fill an awkward space on my arm only took about 30 minutes from start to finish. After the tattoo was done I asked to take a picture and then Tony really opened up; told me a lot of interesting stories and showed me a bunch of cool stuff around his office. I think I stayed for about an hour just chatting. I won't recount all of it here because it would take forever and I want to leave some mystery... but I will describe the pictures.

But before I start here are some neat links...

*  PSC (Point St. Charles) is home to several high-caliber tattooers, check out their work here:

http://psctattoo.com

* There's a bio of Tony on the PSC website (I think I know what book it's scanned from but I'm not positive so I'll save myself the potential embarrassment of giving wrong information...):

http://psctattoo.com/?page_id=142

* And I also found this nice interview from TAM:

http://www.tattooartistmagazine.com/issue7/tonydanessa.html

OK.
So here's Tony and me and my triple chins.

Just finishing up. (Good thing he worked fast because this was a really uncomfortable position to hold my arm! Ha!)

There's a lot of cool stuff around Tony's work space. 

Here's plaque commemorating over 50 years of tattooing (which he has updated with a post-it note, 53 years now!) He also loves to fish - so there's a lot of fishing stuff around.

Tony's dad worked as a commercial artist doing fancy flourishes and filigree stuff. Tony does this stuff too but I think he said his dad did this one. Beautiful!

This book was on his shelf! It's from 1958. I've tried to find this book a few times - used copies are still available - if you want to pay over $300! 

If you go to the articles I linked to you will learn the story of the flash sheets on the roller blinds (after tattooing went underground in NYC). That huge sheet on the wall behind Tony is one of those very sheets!

Tony was kind enough to show me a lot of his drawings and also some scrap books. Here he is with some newspaper clippings of himself.

The young Tony/Henry

I thought it was really cool to see the picture of his forearm tattoo in his youth and as it is now (you can click on them to see them bigger). Tony said he got tattooed when he first started working and never since then. So his tattoos are all over 50 years old now. Some of them have nearly disappeared!

Another really neat thing was seeing all the old hand-cut acetates. Here's a cool Hot Stuff Devil.

I never quite understood how these things worked so Tony was kind enough to demonstrate. I chose one of my favourite old designs - the little boxer boy.

First, put some graphite dust on the acetate...

...and some vaseline on the spot to be tattooed...

...then stick the acetate on there...

... then work from the bottom-up and be careful not to swipe the image away (which can easily happen, as shown here)!!

(Part of me really wanted him to finish the job... but... I'm not quite ready for hand tattoos yet.)

This is the flash sheet that I picked my tattoo from. I didn't go in knowing what I would get, I just knew I wanted something small to fill a weird spot. I've never been that casual about a tattoo before. 

And here's the sweet little hum-dinger I walked away with!! I'm pleased as punch with it and can't believe how perfectly it fit in there!

Thanks as always for making it to the end of another post! If you want to get tattooed by an old-timer, you know where you can do it! Be sure to check out the work of the other guys at PSC!!

drawing experiments

A few new drawing-things. Experimenting with drawing on different backgrounds... not totally successful but kinda fun...

I found this old beach scene (from Trinidad) in a thrift store in Montreal. It was in a sloppy old frame. I was thinking about re-framing it and when I pulled it apart a 3-way photo of the young lad (below) fell out!

Due to my lack of wall-space and the amount of water damage to both images, I decided to play around with them instead of hanging them up. 

I drew a Sailor-Jerry-esque hula girl on the beach scene (I'm having a really hard time drawing leaves in a pleasing shape. I hate these ones): 

I surrounded the young man with tattoo-flash that I thought his bad-ass-inner-self might like:

I was charmed by what "Ian" wrote on the back of the photos (another reason I didn't want to put it in a frame where I couldn't see it anymore...)

"To Pop from Ian

May '43  St. Ridley, Canada

I don't think much of the middle one."

Oh! I also updated my florescent cowboy. I didn't really like the script so I added some florescent duct tape and a new "Howdy". I want to paint his cheeks florescent pink too but I find myself plum out of flor pink paint! Imagine that!

Off on Easter-weekend-travels! See y'all later!
Thanks again!

Howdy: more flash practice

Here's a cowboy from the Russian Criminal Tattoo book. I put him on florescent paper to be anachronistic (and because I had to go to in the mall this weekend and saw that florescence is all the rage... so y'know, just thought I'd jump that bandwagon. Ha!)

OK. Back to the ol'timey look... these are all based on Tatts Thomas from the Vintage Tattoos book by Carol Clerk. 

Tarter build up:

I love this guy. Smoking kills. Ha.

Here they are before colour:

Thanks again.

What's Red, Green, White, and Black All Over?

These recent paintings that's what!

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This one is based on Bob Maddison and Ben Corday:

This one is the Jantzen Diving Girl swimming with a generic traditional shark:

Thanks.

the daily snippet

Down the road at the snow-zoo, Mr. Wilson has been at it again. One day he had smushed all the dying/melting animal carcasses together and the day after that this dragon appeared!

On the homefront, since none the Penguins knocked on my door and asked to sign their autographs on my All Stars/Starr Skates painting, I went ahead and filled the page in with some other hockey-related stuff.

And lately I've been on a Buster Keaton kick. I'd never seen any of his "talkies" and found one at the library called "Free and Easy". I won't get into the whole MGM/Keaton tragedy here except to say MGM misused his talent for sure. Still, there were a few great Buster-moments in the film. 

Today when I went for a walk I saw this sticker right outside my building. I'm not sure if it's newly placed or  if I just noticed it now because I have a fresh association with the phrase "Free & Easy"... 

Anyway, it made me think I should share this little snippet of Buster. The song n' dance starts at about 1:30:

"Start out breezy... if you pleasy."

From there you can go on your own little busta-link-fest. Enjoy!

loosey goosey

Two more drawings/paintings in my little book.

I was trying to be fast and loose with both of these and tried to do things with the inks that I hadn't tried yet. They are just practice really but I'm keeping them as records of progress/learning*.

***

This one was originally based on a couple of pictures from the Sailor Jerry, American Tattoo Master book (pg. 53) but I after I messed up a bunch of lines I decided just to throw colours around, layer them, wash them off, etc. It felt liberating so I put it in the book. I like some stuff that happened in the top left quarter.

This one had very little initial drawing/planning and I painted with only brushes (normally I've been using a nib pen). Everything is copied out of the little Taschen book of tattoos. More specifically the tiger and lady-head are by Tattoo-Jack from Copenhagen (1951), most of the filler is either generic doodling or else copied from Ole Hansen, also of Copenhagen (1952)... oh... except that little dog which is Joseph Hartley, Great Britain (1930s).

 Cheerio.


*I guess every piece you start should be considered "practice"... you never start a thing thinking it's going to stand as your ultimate, amazing masterpiece right? Or at least you probably shouldn't... too much pressure... I digress.

Perk Up

Since I have an illustration due tomorrow morning that isn't yet finished, this seemed like a good time to fart around doing other (unnecessary) drawings and projects around the house... and then to blog about it.

So here is some flash*: some copied from Bert Grimm, some inspired by, and some just my own.

I'll let you sort out what's what. It's all about loving coffee...

(It is, in fact, coloured with coffee too!)

Here it is with my favourite mug and the coffee I was drinking and painting with:

* Not sure if this is done yet... might need to add something to the bottom to balance the squishiness of the top. Also, the lettering is a big mess - but I'm trying to not be super-anal about these things. The pressure of perfection can cause me to stop doing anything at all so I'm attempting to work faster (and letting myself be looser and messier than my ego wants me to be).

Thanks fer perusing!

Stoney Certainly Did Know How

I finished painting this mermaid today. She is repainted from Leonard (Stoney) St. Clair flash.

I'm currently reading "Stoney Knows How" by Alan Govenar and finding it very inspiring. Stoney had rheumatoid arthritis (which is also what Maud Lewis had - another art hero of mine) and I'm amazed at the technical caliber of his work despite the physical hardships he faced. He also seems to have had a wonderful sense of humour and a good philosophy towards his work.

A sign he had hanging in his shop read: "I, Leonard Stoney St. Clair, am in the business of rendering a service to this community for the small group of people who choose to have their bodies decorated in some way or another... I choose to pursue my profession with intelligence and skill, wishing not to offend anyone, but instead with my love of mankind, do what good I can do before I die."

I love that... it embodies how I want to be.

So anyway, I repainted one of his mermaids. I think I might also get a tattoo of this gal eventually. I've long thought of a mermaid tattoo but had never really found the "right one".

I'm pleased with her. I feel like my painting and spit-shading skills are improving.

Here's the original from the book.

Here's one of the sketches I made to get to know her better before bedding her down in the ink.

There is also an awesome video of Stoney you can watch here.

happening now

Inside (from where I sit drawing):

Outside (from where I sit drawing):

Grimm Reaper

I'm struggling today with some kind of cold virus so it was OK to not do "real work". Instead I played around with this flash sheet (mostly re-drawn from Bert Grimm flash). Slowly but surely I'm getting better but I still have much to figure out about working with the ink - especially in the large black areas.

I also finished a quilt today that was mostly completed two years ago but never top-stitched. I had been planning to top-stitch it all by hand but it was obviously not happening and I really wanted to start using the thing - so today I sewed all over it with the Juki and it's finished. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow.

Not bad progress for a "sick day".

U.S.N. gal based on Bert Grimm

Here's a piece of paper I'm painting on these days.

The "v" from a couple days ago, the U.S.N. lady from this morning.

(I didn't stain the paper this time - it's just the bad lighting in the picture that makes it look aged.)

This girl is based on the flash of Bert Grimm (which you can see in the photo below - from the Book Vintage Tattoos).

I wasn't trying to make her look exactly the same - if so, I would have traced her (and I would have painted her in blue). I was curious to see what happened if I drew the same elements without trying to duplicate them precisely. I allowed myself to draw the way I normally draw.

I like the look of the original more. Mine looks a bit "Disney-fied". The eyes too large. The hair overly cartoony. The lines so "flowy". The original is rougher around the edges. It's just... well... it's "cooler".

But I think it's better for me to do it the way that comes naturally and not try too hard to push it to look like something else.

If you do something enough, it will start to look more like what's in your mind eventually... but it will get to that stage gradually, through effort and trial and error. Meaning you will end up with a look that is influenced and molded by the things you like (i.e. what you look at and aspire towards) yet it will be your own thing because it has had time to percolate or be channeled through you.

It is interesting to see how different the two ladies look actually, considering they contain the same "ingredients". Something I draw will probably never look especially rough, crude, or "cool"... because that's not how my brain/eyes/hands work... or who I am as a person.

Anyway, I think it is more important for me to develop a body of work and to see progress over time than to get hung up on one or two images - as "precious" as they may be at the beginning - when they are so few in number...

Ummm... don't know how or why I got off on that tangent. Ah well...

Lesson learned today:

The only answer to dissatisfaction with your artwork is making more artwork.

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a friend, a tattoo, a painting

The other day I was surprised to find a comment on my FB wall from my friend Chris Hold (of Sacred Heart Tattoo in Vancouver) that said, "Your arm is famous."

It turns out Sacred Heart had been featured in Inked Magazine and a tattoo that Chris did on my arm during my recent trip to Vancouver was one of the pictures included in the feature.

Needless to say, I was chuffed - for Chris and for me. It was such a fun tattoo experience and I think he did a great job on it - I'm glad it's been commemorated in this strange way. It's good to see a friend doing well at what he loves. And this weird thing of having my disembodied arm in a glossy American magazine feels somehow like it connects me and Chris across the great divide of this huge country in a "what-are-the-odds?" kind of way...

I digress...

* So here is a picture of my (healed) arm beside a picture of my arm in a magazine. Meta-arm? Meta-magazine? It's meta-something I'm sure!

(I'll talk about the other tattoo another day because it is also a fun story.)

* My arm, with the tattoo Chris did, pointing at a picture of Chris. Gosh, this is getting complicated.

So, I have no "grand meaning" for this tattoo, but there are several layers to why I love it.

I basically just picked it out of a book called "Vintage Tattoos" because I knew I was going to Vancouver and I wanted to get tattooed by my old friend and I knew he liked doing old stuff.

It is from a poster by Joe & Mabel Darpel. I read their story and liked that they were a husband/wive tattooing team. Mabel (the name of our first cat coincidentally) had also been a knife-thrower which I thought was pretty bad-ass. They lived in Waco, Texas - where my husband has family. What I'm trying to say is, there were tonnes of small details that made them resonate with me.

The Darpels (I'm just guessing here) probably got the imagery from the "Mercury Dimes" that were around from 1916-1945. Contrary to the name, these dimes did NOT depict Mercury. They depicted the "mythological goddess Liberty wearing a Phrygian cap, a classic symbol of liberty and freedom, with its wings intended to symbolize freedom of thought." (I stole that from Wiki...)

(I need more "freedom of thought" in my brain so it seemed like a good image for me.)

I really enjoyed learning all the random historical bits associated with this tattoo, especially about the Phrygian Caps. They show up all over the place!

So anyway, I recently decided that I would draw/paint all my tattoos (for the drawing practice and to write down the stories that go with them)

So I started with my Liberty Lady...

* Here you can see the book she came from, my sketch, and the beginning of my final version (which I traced from my sketch).

* Here she is inked in black. I'm still trying to get a handle on using ink and spit-shading and all that. A few of the laurel leaves went so badly that I completely blacked them out. I was pretty frustrated by the inking going badly but I decided to press on and finish the thing. I sometimes quit too easily...

* Here's the mess on my desk.

* Here's the finished thing, glorious screw-up that it is.

(I mean that in a healthy way - I'm glad I actually finished it. I think it has some good points and some bad points... but the main thing is that I finished it.)

Thanks for looking. And thanks to Chris for the awesome tattoo.

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