opheliajosie

So things have calmed down over here. It's been quite the time the past few weeks. Not just the fact that I've been too busy, but also, I had a cancer scare. Two weeks ago I discovered a hard lump at the front of my throat. I immediately arranged a doctor's appointment. She said it was a lump in my thyroid (gland?). A couple of days later I went to the hospital for an echo and blood tests to see if it was innocent or bad news. Thankfully, it's just a cyste. No surgery needed I heard today. I just need to check it now and then if it's painful or getting larger etc. I can tell you, that puts things into perspective! It was such a shock, not just to me, but also to the people around me. Sharine and Debby have been amazing. I couldn't wish for better friends. <3 They have supported me all the way, from the day that I heard from the doc it could be bad, to the day I went to the hospital and they both went with me... and beyond. I love them. This all made me realise that I should do what makes me happy, life could be too short. So now, I move on with an even clearer view of where I want to be in a year.

Much more has happened. :) Sharine got an internship for graphical design and she's currently learning all the software and so she made an image for our future plans. ;) Oh yes, that's us. Hehehe.



Some time ago I have actually tattooed for the first time!! It wasn't meant to happen so soon, but the girl who does telephone and administration there told her it didn't matter if it sucked, because she was going to cover her whole leg anyway. So that weekend, I tattooed a butterfly on her! I had never practised before, but I wasn't nervous. What an experience. I can never go back anymore. So now I'm going to practise on pig skin to really get techniques and skill. The lines were pretty good, but I don't have any shading skills yet, obviously. :p Roel, my teacher, said it was pretty good for a first time. I must say, I'm not really waving the flag for practising on people, but she was convinced I could do okay and she felt confident enough to let me do it. So no worries, I'm not going to tattoo people already left and right. First the pig skin... then the people. :)



Oh, I have new hair. ;) Finally!! I made the decision to have a fringe. For real. Not a swishy thin short layer, no... the real deal. Chop chop! And it's pink. :p Hahaha. Two pics from last Sunday, when we had a girl's day with Debby, Sharine and Yvette. Sharine has a spare room that she made into a sort-of photostudio haha. It was fun. I did make-up on all the girls. :)



And one more update, my latest drawing. One for the pinup series, this time with irisses. They are quite difficult to draw. I will need to do some more sketchy studies of those.



Last night I finished the first of the three paid drawing assignments. :) It's going well. Word gets out around the clients of the tattoo studio that there's a girl working there now who does custom tattoo designs. So, more and more people inquire after the possibilities and want to see my book!! Can you tell I'm happy?

So I have been quite busy lately. My life is basically all about working at the moment. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Amsterdam... Friday and Saturday in the tattoo studio and on Sunday my freelance projects, when possible combined with some socializing. On weekdays I try to draw at night. On my train rides I try to sketch traditional tattoo designs for good practice.

Yesterday was like that. I went to Remon to discuss his website. If we manage what we discussed yesterday, it will be killer! I never have seen anything like that before (what is in our heads now), it's going to be amazing. He's quite sweet. First we went to have lunch... then to his place and I met his two cats Suzy and Calvin for the first time. According to him they are in love with me now haha! We spent a good time talking about my tattoo adventure, his website, art in general... it's so relaxing to hang around with him. We didn't plan anything really, but he suggested we'd see a movie, so we went to Yes Man. Very entertaining for a comedy I must say. After that we had dinner in a crazy modern restaurant, with teddybears everywhere. It's their theme. So I ate my chicken next to Fozzy bear and his friends. :S A great day anyway! :)

I'm going to meet up with my boss to discuss the 3-day plan. Hopefully that's possible.

Oh, here's my latest drawing. Colours are nicer on paper... sue my scanner.



Sharine and I registered www.creativebitches.com. Be prepared. ;) Big plans... big plans.

In one word: incredible! I realise more and more that I have been given this special chance to become a tattoo artist. These two days I've already learned so much, he has told me so many things about the past of tattooing, about the machines, about techniques. Most impressive work of him I saw these days was the "pimpage" of an old ugly dragon tattoo this afternoon. It was badly done 6 years ago, harsh thick lines, ugly solid colours, hardly any shading... and Roel, wow... he made it brand new and so much better. It actually IS a great tattoo now with beautiful colours. Before Roel worked on it, I couldn't see exactly what the image was, except for the green dragon head, and now... one look at it and you understand the image immediately. Roel freehanded a lot of things around it, his own imagination and I have a great respect for him and I am honoured he's willing to teach me.

I'm supposed to go there every Friday. Last night when I got home I felt so tired and headachy and not so well. I planned to stay all day in my apartment today, relaxing and such, but after a good night's sleep, sleeping in a bit, I felt fit enough to go there again to catch a few more hours. I probably won't go every Saturday, because I want to meet up with people too and I need some time to clean my house etc, but now and then I will try to squeeze in a Saturday as well.

So tonight, when I got home after grocery shopping... did some cleaning and after that, nothing! Sitting back, relax, watch a movie. I usually never do that, I'm always busy with something but it feels like I found some "peace" again, or whatever you want to call it. I'm relaxed. Knowing that I'm on this great track to channel my artistic abilities, hopefully I'm able to actually do it. :S Exciting, but scary too. No matter how it will go, at least I have taken on this chance, and I will do my best!

I have just watched The Jane Austen Book Club. I loved that film. Über-feel-good and it obviously has Austen in it, who I naturally love. It just got on my 'to-view-again-and-again-and-again' list, like moving wallpaper.  :)

Good night for now. I hope you are all having a lovely time this weekend!

So pissed off I was last night. I left the office around 17.30 and got home around 21.00. Argh! There flew my plans to finish last Sunday's drawing out of the window. Lots of stuff going on around Utrecht Central Station... and other things between Utrecht and Nijmegen. You could literally walk over people's heads on Utrecht CS! Hopefully it'll go better tonight.

My tattoo is healing quite nicely! No more dry patches, skin is soft and the colours are great! Maybe I'll take some decent pictures of it this weekend.

Thankfully it's Wednesday already. Last workday for this week. Tomorrow night we have a company drink gathering thingie. I won't stay that long, I just want to be home. Then Friday I'll go to the tattooshop, which I'm really looking forward to. Maybe on Saturday I'll go help Tijmen, my friend in Groningen, paint his rooms. He just bought a house, but I think he might be done almost. Will see on Friday how far he is and whatever he wants to do on Saturday.

Sunday will for sure be all mine. Design/draw time! I want to make progress on the identity for Tamara's psychology practice. Already tried out some logos. She needs a full style, documents, website, business cards, presentation template etc.

Remon is going to Neurenberg soon for eight days, to perform (he's an illusionist). He's someone I got to know in December and we have this amazing connection on a lot of levels... spiritual, humour, philosophy, art, style, music and so on and on. I'm curious to know where it will lead to. Both of us have decided to focus on ourselves first. But we inspire each other. We can talk literally for hours on end. Just talk. And sometimes he surprises me with something I do not understand hahaha! He creates stars from a napkin for me to make a wish to, while they should be circles! And then things disappear in his hands! Anyhow, a lasting friendship with him is more important to me than a fling, so I keep potential butterflies caged.

Hmmm, I'll have to continue now with this brochure I'm designing for a business school. Have a great day!

Do any of you tattoo-interested people buy tattoo magazines? If you do, are you also annoyed EVERY time you have to look for the magazines? On Schiphol airport for example I have to wade through the gay porn, in other shops I need to find my way through big busted blondes and in other shops I have to search between the biker and rifles magazines. :S

It's embarrassing at times, that I'm in the men's section, my nose in the blonde big boobstahs magazines, innocently looking for my 'Tattooplanet' or 'Skin & Ink', because tattoo magazines hardly ever stand up front, but often in one of the back rows... and people just glance from the corner of their eyes, wondering what the hell I'm doing there. Isn't it about time the people from the magazine stands fast-forward their perception with approximately 25 years and realise times have changed?!

There IS a design section you know! Or what about the culture/lifestyle section?

Oh well, so I got the newest issue of 'Tattooplanet' this morning.

Hmmmm, it's too cold today. :S On Friday apparently they turned off the central heating thingies in our office, so it was freezing here! The ice flowers were peeking around the corner on my monitor, seriously! :p

So I guess it's official. I have a tattoo apprenticeship. As of this week I will go to the tattoo-shop every Friday to observe, draw and learn. It's very exciting and I wonder how I will do in there. Roel, the artist, was very happy to hear I live less than a mile away from the shop, so it's easy for me to get there.

Last night I've started on a piece of flash, orchids in art nouveau style. Will probably make a whole set out of this, so that means 3 more designs in that style. I think they'll all be orchids, but different views on the orchids and colours, yet with the same nouveau elements in it.

Here are three examples of the styles I have been working on, for tattoo designs. I took these pictures with my phone, so not the best resolution here. These are from early last year. Done with colour pencils.



But today, it'll be all about creating images and illustrations to be used in a high profile presentation for one of our clients, and create a style (logo, invitation etc) for our company's business school that will be starting this month. Enough to get busy with. :)

Have a nice day!

Today has been an incredible day. Got up early to dye my hair (dark pink, again) and clean my house. At 11am Debby came by with her sister-in-law to help me pick up the dressoir I acquired online. It was only a 20 minute drive. It is so lovely. Queen Anne style. I don't know how to translate the type of wood, but it's warm, and shiny, and so lovely classy. I named her Charlotte. :D Haha!


I love it! This is the perfect dressoir for me, what I've been searching for, for so long. I just put some things on it, (like my special edition little TV haha) but I'm not sure yet how I want it to be. For now, this works. :) The nouveau poster will be put in a wooden frame though. Got the frame, I just need to take the time to replace it.

Then Sharine came at 2pm so we could go to Paradigm, the tattoo/piercing shop we visited the other day. She wanted the piercer guy to check on her bellybutton after 5 failed piercings, what the options were. She has a lot of scar tissue from all those previous attempts so he couldn't guarantee a success. He was such a lovable guy, seriously... and so knowledged about his profession. He recommended a dermal anchor and that's what she decided on. It means he makes a small incision to place an "anchor" under the skin, and you screw a little gem or whatever is suitable on it. She has a lovely peridot-coloured gem at the moment. It was a painful ordeal because of the scar tissue, but she was a trooper and did well. It's absolutely lovely, how it came out. Hopefully it won't give any issues anymore. According to the piercer guy, she didn't have a very suitable bellybutton for a normal piercing in the first place. :S Would've been nice if they told her that 8 years ago.

After that we went to Debby's place to have dinner. Hmmmm, so enjoyable bad, fries and other things. It's almost a weekend tradition. Bad, but not seriously bad, because we do it just once a week. ;) Then getting ready for the party that was tonight. Richard's 45th birthday. Sharine and I bought presents together and wrote a cheesy poem for Richard hahaha. He had to read it out loud and I believe it was a success. ;) Also spoke again to Harald, my ex-boyfriend, and it was all good. Relaxing, I have put it all behind me. It feels so good, and liberating.

Now I'm pretty ready for bed I suppose. Had a bit too much white wine... and that glass of honey-vodka did it well. Wow, that was so sweet and tasty... but tricky, because it was so sweet and easy to drink, yet still 40%.

For now, a slightly tipsy good night and I hope you had a great day like I had. X

Just last Sunday I got my first tattoo, and definitely not my last. It was a great experience. Considering the location of the tattoo, I heard stories about the pain... but apparently my pain tolerance level is pretty good. It was just a little scratching. What was slightly painful was Roel, the tattoo artist, gripping my wrist constantly to hold it still, after the outlines were already done. But nothing more than slight burning feeling. Huge adrenaline rush by the way!

I'd already been drawing a design the past year, but only recently I came to my final design. It's a lily with Art Nouveau decorations. To some perhaps a flower with swirlies, to me it is so much more. And set at the perfect time!

Sharine and Debby were there for support. Deb was more nervous than I was. Hahaha. So sweet. Sharine already got tattooed 8 years ago, so she knows what it's like.

Here are some pictures.



( More pictures )

Tomorrow night Richard is having a birthday party where a lot of friends are coming. Hopefully the shedding of the skin has lessened a bit, so I can show a beautiful smooth tattoo. :) I'll keep on moisturizing. Haha.

Before that, in the afternoon Sharine and I will go to another tattoo/piercing shop. She wants to get her bellybutton pierced for the 6th time. Previous 5 times it grew out. :S She's stubborn and wants to try again, after many years. Apparently the piercing guy there is very good. I'm not really into piercings - although I have considered a small ring in my eyebrow a few times - but I'm showing my support! :P Will also be nice to have a look in another tattoo shop. And perhaps I can "network" a bit... how yukky that may sound. LOL. Deb's not joining us, but after the shop visit we're going to Deb and have our traditional weekend dinner there. Bad stuff, it's sooooo good. Haha.

Have a great weekend!
Going to work on my website now. :)

A new journal, a new start. Where I am now: