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The Biomech Encyclopedia is Here!!
So the big moment is here! The Biomech Encyclopedia has been in production for over eight years and involves the artwork and efforts of nearly 150 artists. It's a hard book to classify or describe; it contains a bit of history, a lot of instruction, quite a lot of inspiration and countless visually rich images in all media. Topping off at two volumes of 336 pages each, the Biomech Encyclopedia is part high-quality coffee table art book and part high-powered educational material with writing by dozens of artists from the tattoo, painting, sculpting, digital and filmmaking fields. Includes in-depth interviews, step-by-step instructional features and exhaustively researched biographical material. The top goal of The Biomech Encyclopedia is to help empower creative people to find and develop their own unique voices in the world of abstract art, and almost every bit of material between its covers is presented in a way that serves that purpose. It is now available at Hyperspacestudios.com/books. We have them in our warehouse now and are shipping copies out to our Kickstarter supporters first, so any new orders might take an extra couple weeks to ship out (since the Kickstarter orders get our priority) so expect about 3 weeks shipping time in the US.
Juan Salgado & Guy Aitchison Print Available Now!
@juan_salgado and I have been waiting for the right moment to debut the print of our recent collaboration, "The Cleanse", and we recently crossed paths at the @hell_city tattoo fest and were both present to sign the prints. They are 16x28" plus a 1" black border for mounting purposes, on archival canvas, signed by both artists, $150. We have them in limited quantities because of the difficulty of getting them signed.
Extra-dark Coverup Challenge!
Recently I took on a sleeve coverup project where we were dealing with some fairly dark unwanted work. The upper outer part of the arm in particular had some open areas that allowed us to make a strong composition that wasn't too dense, working with an industrial Biomech theme which is great for covering old tattoos because of its use of rythmic structured detail work. In the above photos you can see the results of the first pass, where we achieved a solid foundation that will allow us to really dial it in during the next session. But we didn't simply blast over the old work, which makes for dense looking coverups- the approach was a bit more strategic than that, which you can read about in detail in your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription, along with additional closeup shots and technical notes.
New Limited Aitchison Print!
Guy Aitchison's most recent painting, "Standing Flame", is being offered for the next 7 days only as a special edition signed archival canvas print. The print is 12x15" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. At noon on Monday, April 15 we will be removing it from the catalog. Available now at Hyperspacestudios.com/prints.
Empire State Tattoo Expo - Biomechanical Workshop!
In this hands-on workshop, Guy goes into detail about making the most of the human form in composing powerful flowing abstract designs to fit the body in a flattering way. He supports these fundamental compositional rules with suggestions for creating lighting, depth and texture while exploring the limitless graphic language of abstract biomechanical design. Following his presentation the class will get an assignment to draw in a human anatomical template while he walks around the class, comments and gives advice toward making the most of each of the students' compositions with emphasis on flow, fit, contrast and overall visual impact.
Guy will also be hosting a free Hyperspace Studios Paint Jam that same evening starting around 9pm- all artists are welcome to join and art lovers are encouraged to watch. People who attended Guy's Biomech Composition seminar are encouraged to participate and will be offered suggestions and guidance.
Click HERE for more information!
New Michele Wortman Painting Now Available as a Print!
As the seasons shift and the cold wintery air turns into a green haze of renewal we'd like to introduce Michele's latest painting, Spring. This painting is about the shift of winter with its blustery grey ambience cycling into the warmth of spring. The female cardinal flies into the next season as the greenery emerges and Nature wakes from its winter slumber with budding dogwoods. At Hyperspace Studios we are celebrating that shift by offering a special edition print of Spring, 22x22" plus a colored border for mounting purposes, on archival canvas, signed by the artist. Produced in-house so we can get the color matching as exact as possible. Drop by hyperspacestudios.com/prints to be a part of this celebration!
Another Collaborative Print by Jon Clue and Guy Aitchison
Jon Clue and Guy Aitchison have been collaborating in various media for close to 25 years, and in the past year they have released special edition prints of some of their paintings. This week we are offering a new reproduction of a classic painting of theirs, Xenobyte, featuring an aquatic life form from the alien world that they've depicted in other pieces. The print is 16x20" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes on archival canvas, signed by both artists. We are also offering a limited framed edition, mounted in a lightweight fingerprint-resistant wooden frame, ready to hang in your art collection or workstation. You can find them at Hyperspacestudios.com/prints. Available until March 29 and then we will be removed from the catalog.
Click HERE to get more information!
Please allow 4-5 weeks for delivery!
Now available: Guy Aitchisons luminous Lantern Cave print
This past week Guy finished one of the more substantial paintings that he's had on the easel recently. "Lantern Cave" dives deep into the subjects that he enjoys most as an artist: Depth, texture and luminosity, with an emphasis on a kind of organic womb-like warmth to dispel the last of the winter chill. We are offering high quality archival signed prints on canvas of this image, including a strictly limited framed edition (we have only 6 of them framed). Prints are 15x30" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. The framed edition is approx. 17x32x1.5" in a museum quality handmade wooden frame, lightweight with a fingerprint resistant texture, ready to hang in your art collection or at your tattoo workstation. This one is perfect for giving your tattoo clients a fun, imaginative space to fall into while sitting there getting needled. This is Guy's most current work; drop by hyperspacestudios.com/prints for more information.
NEW PRINT: The Lotus Unfolds!
It's been 21 years since Guy painted The Lotus Unfolds, and since he's tattooing a similar theme this week he got inspired to rephotograph and master the image for the purpose of a signed archival canvas art print. This is a generous sized print without being too big- 18x22" plus a black border for mounting purposes, $125. In the catalog now at Hyperspacestudios.com/prints
FRAMED Limited Edition AARON CAIN Print!
This week we have a limited quantity of framed Aaron Cain prints, made of the amazing artwork that he created for the upcoming Biomech Encyclopedia. These are stretched and mounted in a gloss enameled textured wooden frame that stands 1.5" out from the wall, ready to hang in your workstation or art studio. Printed on archival canvas, signed and numbered by the artist. We are only making a short run of these but they sure look sweet! Click HERE to order!
Is Scar Tissue Tattooable?
When people are heavily burned they often are told that their scar tissue isn't tattooable, and in many cases this means having to keep arms or legs covered even in hot weather. The fact is, scar tissue is not the same as regular skin and won't necessarily respond well to conventional tattooing techniques. But with the right approach, including a careful use of linework, even deep scar tissue can be tattooed if the client is willing to do 2 or possibly 3 passes on the piece. Pictured above is a coverup I'm doing on Thomas who was badly burned 3 years ago. You can see how the major shapes of the piece were drawn in a way to flow with the scar tissue. You can read more about scar coverups in the Coverup chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Limited Edition AARON CAIN Print!
In celebration of the upcoming late April release of The Biomech Encyclopedia we are offering a limited edition print of the amazing cover art that Aaron Cain did for the book. The print is on archival canvas, 22x14" plus a black border for mounting purposes, signed by the artist. This is literally the first art print that Aaron has produced in his entire career- being a sculptor, this is a rare case of a piece of his that presents well in the print medium. These are a numbered edition of 250 so get em while they are available! In the catalog now at Hyperspacestudios.com/prints
Phil Garcias Approach to Strengthen Realism!
Realism is a genre of tattooing that sometimes comes under fire as being graphically insubstantial and prone to aging poorly. @philgarcia805 has enough of a background in traditional tattooing to appreciate the need for a strong foundation, which is demonstrated here in this adaptation of a @clarklittle photo. Phil carefully interprets his photo references in such a way that strengthens and clarifies the image to give it more clarity and longevity. In this example he has chosen a wave photo that has excellent contrast, giving the piece plenty of value range and allowing for a strong black foundation despite the no-outline approach. You can read more about how Phil optimized this image for skin in the Lines&Edges chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription, along with Phil's guest writer chapter, Attention To Detail.
Using Reserve to Clarify a Complex Tattoo!
It's always fun when our clients approach us with compositional challenges. In some cases this may mean a laundry list of ideas which need to be narrowed down severely; in other cases, like the one shown here, it's just a matter of bringing the elements together in such a way that they can coexist peacefully in the same composition. My client here had asked for a cicada, a skull and some cool geometry. Given no space limits I opted for the largest composition that the leg allowed for, which gave me a sizable canvas in which to bring together these three seemingly unrelated elements. You can read in detail about my design strategy, including how I reserved certain colors and textures for certain shapes in order to retain clarity, in the Reserve chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Season's greetings from Hyperspace Studios!
t's that time of year again and we've got some new paintings to show you. Michele, whose birthday is on Christmas Day, loves to celebrate the holidays with beautiful imagery and make art that is affordable for you to collect or to give as a gift.
Her three recent works, Rose, Lotus and Peony, celebrate the magic and mystery in nature, with its connective patterns and floral flair. This aesthetic is parallel to her tattoo style and personal interest in the art she creates.
We are offering each painting as a reproduction on archival canvas, 8x10" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes, signed by the artist for an amazing deal of 25 bucks for the 25th of Christmas!. Shipping before Christmas is guaranteed on all US orders received by December 16th.
Give the gift of art this holiday!
LIMITED Guy Aitchison & Jon Clue Framed Print!
This week only! Jon Clue and Guy Aitchison have run off and signed a small handful of mini-prints of their collaborative painting Xenoscape 1. They are being offered stretched and framed, ready to take straight from the box and hang... imagine how blown away your loved ones would be getting this as a gift! Prints are 10x25" on archival canvas, signed by both artists, stretched and mounted in a custom black lacquered textured wooden frame. Order by December 16 and US shipping is guaranteed by Christmas. We have only 6 of these!
The Tattoo Community Project Pack!
Looking for a fun and unusual gift for that art fan in your life? We have a ton of great stuff at the Hyperspace Studios online store including high quality art prints of all price ranges, shirts and other cool wearable items, books and DVDs. Today we are featuring the Tattoo Community Project Pack, which includes several fun books and documentaries featuring a great variety of art from a range of different artists. This includes the Pint Sized Paintings, Scratch Art and Innerstate books, plus the Innerstate and Hell City documentaries, all for the special price of $85. Come check out what else we have at the Hyperspace Studios online store! Guaranteed US Christmas shipping on all orders received by December 16, 2018.
How Will White Ink Hold Up?
Lately we are seeing more and more use of bold white lines in tattoos, and of course many ask: How will that hold up? White ink by itself is very subtle, only shows up clearly on some skin types, and can heal with uncertain results. But used the right way, this approach can create a really striking look, as with this bioluminescent jellyfish that @jonclue and I tattooed recently on Jordan. We wanted to make a creature that appeared soft and luminous but which still had enough strength not only to hold up with time but also to read clearly through a mat of leg hair. You can read in detail about our approach to this piece in the Lines&Edges chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Please note: If you place an ORDER between 11/16 - 11/27
we WILL NOT be shipping your order until 11/28
Any questions or issues will be taken care of on 11/28
If you are having a problem logging into your ReinventingTheTattoo subscription, please contact: TattooNOW at: email@example.com
Sorry for any inconvenience!!
Tattoo Edging Techniques!
Often I'll use a combination of line weights in a piece in order to make certain elements pop out the most. In other cases, though, the goal is for something softer and with more of a sense of realism, leaving the additional challenge of making shapes visually distinct from each other without varying line weight. In this psychedelic floral piece I did on Julia, we used relatively fine sculpted lines for certain shapes, including the ornamental plant stuff toward the bottom of the piece, but then the rest of this complex composition was handled using edges, not lines- but done so mindfully in order to keep the piece readable. You can read more about my use of edging techniques in this piece in the Lines&Edges chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Collaborative art print by Jon Clue and Guy Aitchison
Available this week only, ending on Friday, November 9 we are offering a limited fine art reproduction of a collaborative oil painting by Jon Clue and Guy Aitchison of their latest cosmic alien abstract scene. The print is actual size, 20x20", plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes and is printed on archival canvas. Prints will be signed by both artists. Offer ends at noon central time this Friday, then this print will be removed permanently from the catalog. You can find it at www.hyperspacestudios.com/prints.
A Backpiece Can Be Complex!
Normally when taking on a full backpiece, my first inclination is to use bold black lines- often up to a few millimeters thick- to distinguish the foreground objects and give the tattoo the graphic clarity that it needs. A backpiece can be complex, so attempting the piece without lines means taking extra care to be sure that the distribution of black is strategic and strong, and that color contrast and detail development are used optimally. With this full back, I had the advantage of a good photo reference, since I had built this crazy thing out of clay and photographed it... but it was still my responsibility to translate it into a strong and readable tattoo. I talk in more detail about this project and its clarity considerations in the Lines&Edges chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Incorporating Realism in a Tattoo!
Although my goal is not necessarily to be a photo-realist, I do like to incorporate elements of realism in my work, especially when wildlife or naturalistic settings are involved. At the same time, there is also the goal of making a tattoo that is bold and graphically strong, so working without heavy black lines means that effort needs to go into clarifying the composition and ensuring that the pos/neg relationship is distinct. With this marine sleeve, some foreground elements do have outlines, such as the tentacles that you see at the bottom- but with the hammerhead shark I saw an opportunity to make something that is both bold and realistic. You can read about some of the considerations that went into this piece in the Lines&Edges chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Creating a Convincing Depth Effect!
With free-form organic work, part of my goal is always to create a convincing depth effect. With black and grey or muted color schemes, such as this pearlescent gray palette use here, that challenge becomes more pronounced, since vibrant contrasting colors aren't being used as a clear and obvious way to distinguish the different shapes from each other. When my longtime friend and colleague @deanocook asked me to take on this massive laser coverup project, he had a fairly distinct palette in mind, and I gladly embraced these limitations to see where I could run with them. You can read in detail about my color choices and other tricks used to convey dimension in this piece in the Depth chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Designing Tattoos with Multiple Layers!
I love making layers in my tattoo designs, where you can get a sense of what's in the foreground, middle ground and background, to the point where it almost seems like you could reach in and grab it. This effect is achieved by combining various graphic tricks meant to enhance depth, tricks that work in almost any style, not just biomech such as with this hand tattoo by @donmcdonaldtattoo and myself. You can read more about the tricks we used in this piece in the Depth chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Planning Out the Tattoo's "Flow&Fit"
You all know how much I love textures, and in some cases I have to intentionally limit my use of them in order to keep a composition balanced. When my German client Uli asked me to start this epic piece inspired by the great tree painter Eyvind Earle, I saw it as an opportunity to create a flowing piece that transformed his leg, but knew that I had to be mindful to keep it from becoming a hard-to-read riot of textures. You can read about how I planned out this piece in the Flow&Fit chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Steve Butcher Chapter Added to Reinventing Subscription!
Nobody does focus effects like New Zealand realist Steve Butcher, who has been seizing the world's attention with his eye-popping portraits and wildlife tattoos, with his sports action portraits being some of his most stand-out work. We recently had a chance to interview Steve and get some insights into the thinking and technical processes that go into creating effective focal fields on skin. He shared everything from his stenciling to needle choices and use of color, providing realists with a chance to expand their language and incorporate focus, which can make a piece look like it came straight from a camera. Focal fields are a type of contrast, which makes it possible to selectively make certain elements stand out while others drop back. You can read more about Steve's groundbreaking technique in the Contrast chapters of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
New Website for The Bloom Project!
We want to tell you about a new and exciting website that's just been launched for Michele's Bloom Project. You can learn more about Bloom Project here and get involved by following its daily updates here. In celebration of this, Michele has joined forces with her friend and client Michelle Roberts who designed the website and is an active contributor to the project.
Michele recently designed two shirts, a rose and a lotus design from the Bloom Project in support of Bravely House, the nonprofit charity that Roberts works with.
These comfortable, high quality fitted shirts make a great statement for strong women everywhere, and help fund the ongoing work that Bravely House does in helping the women in its community.
Finally, as the fall season is upon us and the hummingbirds get ready to leave for warmer weather, we are offering Shapes and Planes. This painting is about shifting moments in abstractions of space and time, a theme that Michele enjoys exploring. You can find more examples of her unique painting style in the Hyperspace print gallery .
Michele's New Print Celebrating Hummingbirds!
We sure did enjoy this past summer... and one of our favorite features of summertime are the hummingbirds dashing around the yard, flashing their brilliant iridescent colors. Now they are in their final few weeks before packing up for the year and making their difficult flight across the gulf. To celebrate these amazing creatures, Michele painted Shapes&Planes, pictured here, combining hummers with her distinctive use of abstract geometric forms. This piece is available as a low-cost signed archival canvas print at Hyperspacestudios.com/prints, along with a wide range of other fine art prints, most which are color matched and produced in-house here at Hyperspace Studios.
Shaine Smith & Guy Aitchison Collaborative Print!
Shaine Smith is in town this week for a number of projects including this collaborative painting that he and Guy are doing. They are offering a print of this piece which will only be available until noon Central US time this coming Friday, Sept. 21. Tune into Guy's Instagram feed to see progress on this piece!
Click HERE to order!
Creating Depth in a Tattoo!
One of my goals with most of my work is to produce a sense of tangible depth- the more convincing the effect, the better. With Biomech work, there are sometimes two distinct layers of mech stuff, a foreground and background layer, and I always try to use all the tricks to produce depth. Reserving true whites for the foreground only is one such trick- note how the background highlights are done in creamy light colors which cause the foreground highlights to look brighter by comparison. You can read about these tricks in more detail in the Reserve chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Tattooing with Many Design Elements!
Often we find ourselves tasked with bringing together all of our client's requests on a limited area of skin, without making the piece busy. With the above example on Julia, part of the goal was to give an epic, energetic expressive feeling to the piece, which was accomplished partly by using swirling clouds and light rays. But with all of the design elements in place I had to make the most of color use and other factors to keep it clear, reserving certain colors for some elements but not others. You can find out about my thinking process for this color scheme in the Reserve chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription!
Design Elements for a Large Tattoo!
Large canvases such as backpieces can be great fun with all that space to design for, but this fact makes it even more crucial that you determine- Hey, which design elements get your top visual priority? In this Heaven-themed back tattoo that I did with Brian Geckle, we wanted to combine an airy, luminous mandala with a row of fences and gates- both elements being geometric and symmetrical, giving us the challenge of keeping them visually separate. Part of this was accomplished simply by being selective with our use of black. You can read about this in more detail in the Priority chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Planning a Multi-layer Tattoo
Many of the pieces I tattoo make use of multiple layers of elements, which could easily get crowded if not for some careful planning. I usually start by asking myself which elements are the highest priority- that is, what do I want the viewer to notice first?- and then designing so that those elements stand out. In this classic biker babe sleeve I made use of line weight, contrast, focus and color to make her face stand out. You can read all about my approach to this design in the Priority chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription!
Tattooing Smaller Pieces with Complex Multilayers!
When approaching smaller pieces, especially complex multilayered ones, I try to break the composition down into a few simple large light and dark areas that will read clearly from a distance, rather than looking like a jumble. With this big hand hook on Wes, we wanted to work in a few gears and things along with the hook- a recipe for potential chaos. So I began by anchoring the design with a big simple flowing diagonal shape, one with a decent surface area, and then plotted in the gear elements around that. You can read about the design strategy for this piece in more detail in the Contrast chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Value Contrast is Important in any Tattoo!
Value contrast is important in any tattoo, where your dark and light areas form a strong visual balance... but with black and grey work, we don't have the benefit of color to help differentiate the shapes in the piece, so use of light and dark becomes more critical in the success of the tattoo. In this collaboration with Pennsylvania artist @chrishall, we wanted to make the honeycomb cluster really stand out, so we placed the darkest shading in the areas around that cluster while limiting the use of black within it. You can read more about how we planned out this piece in the Contrast chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription!
Tattooing Pos/Neg Relationships
I always try to give my tattoos as much clarity as I can by being mindful of my positive/negative relationships, which help the shading make sense to the eye, but when doing black and grey work, without the benefit of color contrast, shading is even more crucial in separating the design's shapes. You can read all about how I approached the shading for this piece in the chapter on Positive/Negative Relationships in your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.
Tattooing Pos/Neg Relationships
The larger and more complex a design is, the more crucial it becomes that your pos/neg relationships make sense to the viewer's eye. In this collaborative backpiece I did with New York artist Jon Clue, we planned on sticking with a mainly organic and textured approach, making readability even more important... so we made use of bold areas of black and a few strategic cast shadows to help keep it all together. You can read in detail about how we planned this one out in the Positive/Negative Relationships chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription!
Please note: If you place an ORDER between 8/17 - 8/26
we WILL NOT be shipping your order until 8/27.
Any other questions or issues will be taken care of on 8/27
Sorry for any inconvenience!!Posted from Tattoo Education
Doing a Tattoo with Laser Work in Progress!
Posted from Tattoo Education
When I started Brian's sleeve/chest panel combo, he had some laser work in progress on the arm which caused us to start with the chest rather than the arm- resulting in us approaching the project differently, where I used the full width from the center of the sternum out to the front of the deltoid, where with an arm-first approach the deltoid would have already been done up in a shoulder cap of some sort. You can read more about my approach to this project in your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription!
Flow & Fit Tattoo Challenge!
Posted from Tattoo Education
Here's a recent challenge that Brian Geckle and I took on- bringing together dimensional organic biomech with linear graphic mandala designs. Part of the solution to this puzzle was to create circular planes in the design on which the mandalas could be inscribed. You can read more about our strategy for this project in the Flow&Fit chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription!
Classic Aitchison & Wortman Prints Rebooted!
Ever since we got our own fine art canvas printer we've been enjoying re-releasing some of our classic prints in a new and improved format. This week we are offering new sizes of Michele Wortman's print From Within and Guy Aitchison's Expansion, which have been rephotographed and carefully color matched to the originals. Both editions are still available in their standard sizes, but we have added a 22x29" print of From Within, and a 22x38" edition of Expansion. Prints come signed on archival canvas and include a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. Check out what else we have in our fine art print gallery!Posted from Tattoo Education
We are excited to announce the addition of an important new seminar, Flow & Fit, to the Reinventing The Tattoo curriculum! Flow and fit are at the core of good tattoo design, and such a fundamental part of the discussion of good tattoo drawing that it's the first chapter in the book after the introduction... you'll find the new seminar posted at the end of Page 9. Featuring the work of @guyaitchisonart @meganjeanmorris @coryferguson @burningxhope @philgarcia805 @zhencangtattoo @tymcewen @juan_salgado @russabbott @natebeavers @adamfrance and @shainesmithtattoo, the workshop shows you how to apply strong flowing design strategies to any style of tattooing. Available now in your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription!Posted from Tattoo Education
New Prints and Book/Print Combo from Michele Wortman
We are adding two new prints and a print/book combo to our catalog today, showcasing the painting and photography of Michele Wortman.
Her Innerstate painting was produced for the Innerstate event that she and Guy hosted, which encouraged its participants to tap into an internal stream of data and pull out their inner vision. The hummingbird is energy, traveling through prismatic space, intermingling the outer world of nature to the inner world musings of the reality of our existence and the subtle cosmic web that sews it all together. It's now available as a gorgeous large format print, 21x33" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes.
Droplet is part of the epic body of photography that Michele produced for her book Moments of Epiphany. It is the first time she has offered one of these images as a large format canvas art print, 22x33" plus a 1" colored mounting border, which is a particularly attractive presentation for her photos. It can be purchased by itself or in a combination package with the Moments of Epiphany book. Any of these items are a perfect celebration of the coming of Spring. Available now at Hyperspace Studios!Posted from Tattoo Education
NEW Guy Aitchison Coverup Tutorial Available Now!!
Many tattooists avoid coverup work, feeling that they do their best work on clean skin, but a lot of clients who are seeking coverup work are also transitioning from collecting small tattoos to becoming serious tattoo collectors, and the artists willing to help them with their unwanted work are also likely to get lots of clean skin from them as well- so by taking on coverups you can greatly expand your client base and your career. Noted tattooist Guy Aitchison has been doing coverup work for most of his 30 years in the trade, and shares what he knows about the subject in two DVD tutorials, Coverup: A Fresh Look and Coverup: The Next Level, showing an artist's eye view of the coverup process from consultation to completion, guiding artists past the common coverup pitfalls and showing healed and settled results for many kinds of coverup projects, including work by guest artists in a variety of different styles. These two seminars are now bundled together in a comprehensive educational package that will help gain you coverup superpowers- and in the process, a whole new scope of clientele including larger scale work. You can find it at alongside our other educational DVDs. Or you can simply subscribe to Reinventing The Tattoo, which makes all this material instantly available.Posted from Tattoo Education
First Aitchison Mini-Print of 2018!
This week we are releasing Guy's first new print of the year, an affordable mini reproduction of LavaCoil, which he just completed last night. Prints are 8x10" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes, and come signed on archival canvas for only $30. Can be stretched or matted. Color matched and produced right here at Hyperspace Studios, and perfect for your workstation art collection. Available until noon on Wednesday February 7, and then we are removing it permanently from our catalog.Posted from Tattoo Education
Ohio Bio Show Combo!!
We've made an overrun of prints for the Ohio Bio Show at Red Tree Gallery last fall, and they've just sent the extras back to us. We are offering a discount on a combo of all three of these prints for the next 48 hours only, with all of them combined for $125. Click HERE to take advantage of this deal!Posted from Tattoo Education
Expand your drawing skills!
For this week's special we are reaching out to all you artists wanting to expand your drawing skills. Joe Swanson's Draw Tattoo Style is a great primer for fundamental classic tattoo drawing, and The Body Sketch Book is designed for the purpose of applying your drawing skills toward specific body parts in a way that can help you draw more fluently for your clients. Try watching Swanson's tutorial and then taking those ideas straight to The Body Sketch Book, and see how quickly you can advance your abilities!
'Tattoo Drawing Combo'
is the Featured Item unitl the end of January.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Posted from Tattoo Education
Final 72 Hours of The Biomech Encyclopedia Kickstarter!
For those of you who have been following the current Kickstarter campaign that we're having for The Biomech Encyclopedia, there's great news- we have exceeded our goal and have raised enough funds to print the deluxe two-volume slipcase edition, which is really what we had our hearts set on. The campaign isn't over yet, though, and any additional funds raised in the final 72 hours will go toward making the book even better, including a few more fun publishing bells and whistles, and also funding the purchase of a large format printer to make proofing of this massive edition easier.
We have a lot of great rewards available for supporters, including some not pictured here. The book itself is the important one, and you can pledge amounts for one, two or three copies. We also have available T-Shirts, a die-cut sticker pack, a limited edition poster, and combination packages including the shirt, poster, book and sticker pack. For those wanting to show a higher level of support we have some unique collaborative pieces of original art made during the production of the art in the book, signed by multiple artists and placed in a hand-embellished mat. The next level up are color mixed media signed biomech originals, matted and framed. You can also take this rare opportunity to line up for an original framed oil painting from Guy's current series, which will be ready to ship shortly after the campaign.
Show your support for this one-of-a-kind publishing project, and get some cool stuff in the process- drop by The Biomech Encyclopedia at Kickstarter to see the project in detail.Posted from Tattoo Education
This weeks special - Animal Tattoo SUPER Combo!!
Do you want to step up your game with some great educational materials to make your animal tattoos better? If so, this is the combo for you. You get 3 great titles (1 book & 2 DVDs) for a great price! The combo saves $50 over buying each item individually.
What's inlcluded in the combo:
Mike DeVries hardcover book, Animal Ink: Exploring the World's Wildlife Through Tattoo Art, is a feast for the eyes and is brimming with inspiration from some of the world's best tattooists. Featuring 304 full-color pages, this artistic beauty not only contains tattoo work from 160 talented tattoo artists, but in addition includes 62 stories about specific animal tattoos with details, meanings, and inspiration from the collectors who wear the ink and the artists who inked them. If you just want the book, it has been dicounted to $45 this week!
2. Get Real with Mike DeVries: Animal Style
This two-disk DVD set features: higher all-around quality, more camera angles, better music, and essentially real-time editing. The informative instruction covers topics such as: Photoshop techniques to apply to tattooing, placement, stenciling, set-up, machines, needles, my palette and ink choices, color mixing; and most importantly, up-to-date tattooing techniques. In this DVD each step is explaied while being executed, rather than providing voice- overs done at a later time.
3. Keith Ciaramello's Keep It Real 3
This two-disk DVD set offers an insightful glimpse into pet portraiture, which has recently become a popular- and sometimes surprisingly striking- tattoo motif. In Keith's approach you can see how his foundation in painting and other mediums translates into his painterly approach to handling subtle realistic color on skin. It shows pretty much the entire tattoo process over the course of 4 hours on 2 DVDs, with the whole procedure described in detail.
This Week Only (January 8 - January 14)
'Animal Tattoo Super Combo!'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)Posted from Tattoo Education
New Rewards Added to Biomech Encyclopedia Kickstarter Campaign!
Happy New Year from Hyperspace Studios!
The big news this week is our ongoing Kickstarter campaign, which is intended to fund the upcoming epic community book project, The Biomech Encyclopedia. The campaign is going well, and at this point it looks like we will at bare minimum reach our $40,000 goal, which will cover the cost of a deluxe 10x13" hardcover edition with a few extra bells and whistles. But we don't want to settle for that if we don't have to- ultimately, we'd like to raise enough to print the two volume edition with slipcase, as pictured here. That would allow us to include more content and to make the book more deluxe in general.
If you are already a supporter of this project, take a look at our newest rewards. For those who have pre-ordered the book, you can now upgrade your pledge to include both the book and T-shirt. In addition, for those who have pledged at a higher level, you can now upgrade your pledge to include circular framed oil paintings by Guy, who is slamming away full time right now on the book content and reward packages.
Let your friends know about the Biomech Encyclopedia Kickstarter campaign- this is a book that will be an epic visual trip for any art fan and an incomparable learning experience for tattooists, filmmakers, special effects artists, game designers, and graphic artists of all types who are wanting to expand their vocabulary. Once we break the $40K goal we'll be announcing new rewards for stretch goals, some which will only be available to our early supporters.
Help support the Biomech Encyclopedia project today!
Click HERE for all the info!Posted from Tattoo Education
Sign Up Now For Guy's Latest High-Power Artists' Workshop!
Guy Aitchison has been teaching seminars to tattoo artists since 1993, in the process fine-tuning his approach to give artists the most bang for their buck. In his newest workshop, Contrast: The Backbone of a Tattoo, Guy begins by going over a broad range of theory and practical ways of increasing the impact of your work, using still images and video from not only his own studio but also including work by a variety of top artists working in different styles. This will be followed by a hands-on workshop for participants, giving them a chance to put these ideas to work right away in order to see how to incorporate them into a day-to-day tattooing practice. Intended for professional tattoo artists of all levels of experience. The workshop will take place on Sunday, May 20th at 10:00am, at the Tattoo The Lou convention in St.Louis, MO.Posted from Tattoo Education
Print Specials available at our eBay Store!!
A new year is the perfect time to add art to your studio or home. So, we are putting some budget priced archival canvas prints up at our eBay store. All prints are signed and dated on archival canvas, and are extras from our proofing process. This means that they may differ in size or have slight color differences from the production run. The good news is, you get to save some money; because these prints are roughly half the price that they are in our catalog at the HyperspaceStudios store. Some prints are limited run and no longer available in our catalog! Check out our eBay store by clicking here: https://www.ebay.com/usr/hyperspacestudios2upgPosted from Tattoo Education
Biomech Encyclopedia Kickstarter Campaign is now LIVE!
Hey everyone,
So the big moment has come. As of thursday morning the Kickstarter campaign for the Biomech Encyclopedia is now live. We have every intention of making this campaign a successful one, which will fund the costly print job for the massive book. If we exceed our $40,000 goal we plan on making it a multi-volume edition with all sorts of fun bells and whistles. This will be a 30 day campaign, which is recommended in the Kickstarter Creator's Guide as being the most likely duration for success, as longer campaigns tend to bring on a kind of campaign fatigue. So let's make every one of those 30 days count.
We are hoping that we can rely on you to help spread the word. I've attached some graphics and included a couple links, along with some generic text that you can either use as-is or customize to your liking for use on Facebook, Instagram or anywhere else that it fits. We also encourage you to support the campaign by making a pledge there- this is a great opportunity to grab some original art, or order copies of the book in advance. And if you know of any blogs or other press contacts that you believe we should reach out to, please let us know.
We also wanted to remind you that the collaborative Flickr gallery will be running for the duration of the Kickstarter campaign. You should be able to find the invitation in your inbox, but if not, let us know and Kurt will resend it. It's starting to get interesting there, but we would love to get a lot more of you involved. The collab gallery has been one of the most fun aspects of this project, and is an inspiring way to spend your downtime this December and early January. I recommend installing the Flickr app on your phone so you can review, comment, download and upload things instead of wasting time scrolling through that old instagram feed. We need more rough sketches there, which you can do on a bar napkin and then take a quick snap on your phone and upload it then and there.
Anyway, I hope to see you there. Below is some text for your social media announcements about the Biomech Encyclopedia. Thanks, and let us know if you have any questions!
Here is a link to the Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/139266974/biomech-encyclopedia?ref=discovery&term=biomech%20encyclopedia
and a link to a high resolution version of the video, on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4f1k4F4C9eM
(long version)
Biomech Encyclopedia Kickstarter Campaign is now LIVE!
Tattooists who like to work in the biomechanical genre have known for a long time how fun and productive it can be to collaborate in this style, which allows for free exploration of visual themes. Most of you are familiar with the work of H.R. Giger, who popularized this style when he designed the creature and sets for the original Ridley Scott movie Alien. Tattoo artists have picked up where Giger left off and run in all kinds of diverse directions with these abstract worlds, demonstrating the broad range of what can be expressed with organic and biomechanical art.
Produced by veteran tattoo artist Guy Aitchison, The Biomech Encyclopedia explores this great graphic range, acting as a source of instruction and inspiration for tattooists, filmmakers and special effects artists, game designers, and any art fans wanting to dive deeply into this abstract alien realm. The book will be large format (10x13"), around 500 pages, hardbound, possibly with a deluxe slipcase, and will include art, collaborations and feature articles by dozens of artists from around the world. To fund the production and printing of this massive volume, there is now a Kickstarter campaign where you can preorder the book along with a number of other rewards including collaborative paintings and original art from the book. You can find the project by going to kickstarter.com and searching "Biomech Encyclopedia". Help make the Biomech Encyclopedia a reality! #biomech #biomechanicalart 3abstract #art #tattoo #tattooart #artbook #kickstarter
(short version)
Biomech Encyclopedia Kickstarter Campaign is now LIVE!
Tattooists who like to work in the biomechanical genre have known for a long time how fun and productive it can be to collaborate in this style, which allows for free exploration of visual themes. Produced by veteran tattoo artist Guy Aitchison, The Biomech Encyclopedia explores this great graphic range, acting as a source of instruction and inspiration for tattooists, filmmakers and special effects artists, game designers, and any art fans wanting to dive deeply into this abstract alien realm. The book will be large format (10x13"), around 500 pages, hardbound, possibly with a deluxe slipcase, and will include art, collaborations and feature articles by dozens of artists from around the world. There is now a Kickstarter campaign where you can preorder the book along with a number of other rewards including collaborative paintings and original art from the book; go to kickstarter.com and search "Biomech Encyclopedia". Help make the Biomech Encyclopedia a reality! #biomech #biomechanicalart 3abstract #art #tattoo #tattooart #artbook #kickstarter
(shortest version)
The Biomech Encyclopedia is a community art book project that explores the great graphic range of the biomechanical genre, acting as a source of instruction and inspiration for tattooists, filmmakers and special effects artists, game designers, and any art fans wanting to dive deeply into this abstract alien realm. There is now a Kickstarter campaign where you can preorder the book along with a number of other rewards; go to kickstarter.com and search "Biomech Encyclopedia". Help make the Biomech Encyclopedia a reality! #biomech #biomechanicalart 3abstract #art #tattoo #tattooart #artbook #kickstarterPosted from Tattoo Education
New Michele Wortman prints added to the catalog!
We are adding two new moderately sized prints from Michele Wortman just in time for the holidays! Outside In is a painting about transition and the perspective of being outside of things while looking inwards. Jewel is about hope, joy and elevation from sadness and distress. It represents renewal and looking more brightly ahead. Both prints are 12x12" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. Signed by the artist on archival canvas. They are $30 each, or get them both for $50! Order by 12/17 and get FREE US shipping!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Posted from Tattoo Education
December 11-12 Featured Iteml!
We have some great gifts available at Hyperspace Studios, with Christmas shipping inside the US guaranteed on all orders received by noon on December 18th. If you are stumped about what to get for the art fan in your life we recommend the Tattoo Community Project Pack which bundles together several particularly cool items for one low price! These include Scratch Art, featuring scratchboard art by hundreds of artists in a highly diverse collection; Innerstate, a book and documentary DVD showing about tattoo artists creating visionary art pieces; The ArtFusion Experiment, Paul Booth's documentary about live collaborative art performances; and Pint Size Paintings, a pocket sized book featuring tiny pieces of epic art. All of these items are loaded with surprising creative content that will inspire and entertain anyone with an interest in the tattoo world. As our Featured Item, it has free US shipping, plus free shipping on all items ordered with them!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)Posted from Tattoo Education
Holiday Specials: December 8-10!
For this weekend's special we are featuring three large format prints at a great holiday discount. Michele's painting From Within celebrates the expression of your unique personal energy in your art and your life.
Guy's painting Beacon Of Faith is about transcendence and personal evolution, and his piece Hypercosmic Spiral is a large format yet compositionally simple artistic gesture, painted live on stage in a performance. All three of these prints are normally $200, but for this weekend we are discounting them to $150 each. As our Featured Items, they get free US shipping, plus free shipping on all items ordered with them!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Posted from Tattoo Education
Music Special from Proton Press!!
Just in time for the holidays we are offering our 5 CD Proton pack of electronic music for only $15. Many of the artists included in this collection have been featured in video content we've produced including live performances at Hell City and Innerstate, and makes a great soundtrack for your painting space or tattoo studio. Limited availability!
Order between December 6-7 and get FREE US SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Posted from Tattoo Education
December 4-5 Holiday FREE Shipping Specials!
For this holiday season we are offering some great deals on high quality archival canvas art prints, which make amazing yet affordable gifts for art collectors. Prints are on archival canvas and are produced in-house for careful color matching, and are signed by the artists. The deals listed here are available until December 18 (cutoff time for U.S. shipping) but if you order in the next 24 hours you'll get free shipping too!
Michele has just added Zenscape 1 to the catalog, and it's the largest print we produce here while at the same time making a reserved statement ($250, $50 savings)
She has also introduced canvas editions of Sacred Space 1&2, available together ($100) or separately ($60 each)
Her epic vibratory painting Potential is available in 2 sizes, discounted to $75 and $150 ($50 savings on each)
She is also adding Seed, a striking meditation on life's promise, $60 ($20 savings)
Keeping with the holiday theme of life and rebirth, Guy is offering deals on several of his prints including Perennial, temporarily priced at $50 ($30 savings)
Radiant Flux is about channeling creative energy, and is one of Guy's most colorful recent pieces, priced this month only at $90 ($30 savings)
And for those seeking something truly epic, Guy's visionary pair of organic and mechanical crystalline pieces, Lightform 7 and 8, are now each available for $150 ($50 savings) or as a pair for $275 ($125 savings!)
For the next 48 hours you can get free shipping in the US on all of these items! Special pricing is available until December 18.
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Posted from Tattoo Education
Hyperspace Studios Family Mini Print Combo
Celebrate the holidays with the Hyperspace Studios Family Mini Print Combo! We are bundling together three small prints from @guyaitchisonart @michelewortman and their daughter Kaia Rose. Guy's painting Flamecoil is about focusing personal internal energy, making it a perfect gift for artists. Michele's painting Trio celebrates family, in a palette meant to work well in any architectural space. Kaia's painting Wooden Duck is an abstract exploration of light and form. The prints are 8x16", 8x11" and 8x10" plus 1" colored borders for mounting purposes, and are signed by the artists on archival canvas, $100 for all three. We've added this combo permanently to our catalog, but for the next two days it's our featured item, giving you free US shipping on it plus anything else you order along with it!
Featured Item: 11/29-11/30
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $22.00 and anywhere else is $32.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)Posted from Tattoo Education
Cyber Monday Specials!!
This Cyber Monday we are offering 4 great specials until Midnight tonight!!
Each special includes FREE US SHIPPING!!
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Perfect for cool weather, this comfortable indoor/outdoor knit and faux leather jacket has on of Michele's crystal mandalas embroidered on the right sleeve. For Cyber Monday only, we are dropping the price to $40 and throwing in FREE US shipping!
In The Tattoo Community Project Pack, we feature books and DVDs from four projects: The ArtFusion Experiment, Scratch Art, Innerstate and Pint Size Paintings. For Cyber Monday only, we are dropping the price to $99 and throwing in FREE US shipping!
Save $25 on two of Guy Aitchison's most essential video tutorials. Technique is a 4 DVD set detailing Guy's rendering methods, and Coverup: A Fresh Look features an updated approach to coverup, allowing you to greatly expand the scope of your career. These two tutorials also make a great gift for tattooists of all levels experience. For Cyber Monday only, we are dropping the price to $199 and throwing in FREE US shipping!
For this holiday season we are adding a new combo pack of two signed archival canvas prints of Michele and Guy's most recent paintings, BioSpore and Chrysalis. You can get these two prints together for $125 - a savings of $15. Get them today on Cyber Monday and get FREE US shipping!
Order any of the special Cyber Monday items and get FREE US SHIPPING!!
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!Posted from Tattoo Education
New Print Available from Guy Aitchison - Chrysalis
This week's special is an archival canvas print of Guy's latest Mind Tree painting, Chrysalis. For those familiar with Guy's Mind Tree series, Chrysalis is the next level in exploring this colorful, luminous abstract alien space, and is currently hanging in the Ohio Bio Show at Red Tree Studio in Columbus, Ohio. The print is 18x26" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes, and is signed and dated by the artist. As this week's special, you get free shipping in the US, not only on the print but on anything else that you order with it!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $10.00 and anywhere else is $20.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Special Keith Ciaramello & Guy Aitchison Postcard Combo!
This Week Only (October 13-19)
'Keith Ciaramello's KEEP IT REAL Combo Pack'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING, a $46 discount
& Guy Aitchison's 6 Piece Postcard Set!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $20.00 and anywhere else is $35.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Keith Ciaramello's Keep It Real Volume 1,2&3 combo pack
7 DVDs 13+ hours $199.00 (Save $46.00!)
In Keep It Real Volume 1, Award winning artist Keith Ciaramello takes you through the process of tattooing a color portrait of "The Eighth Wonder of the World" Andre the Giant! Topics covered include; choosing reference, enhancing reference in Adobe Photoshop, making the stencil, stencil application, flesh-tones, color mixing, needles, inks, using the Neuma Hybrid and much more. Keith has added a third BONUS DVD of his live seminar lecture. This is over 5 hours on 3 discs! The techniques discussed apply to coil and rotary machines as well.
In Keep it Real Volume 2, Keith picks up where he left off in KIR vol.1 by explaining applied realistic techniques in black and gray. Keith continues to provide the clear, detailed explanations he has become known for, and once again (as in KIR Vol.1) includes his onscreen "Palette Cam" and photo reference throughout the entire process. It's presented almost entirely in real time, and shot with extreme closeups so clear you can count the needles. Find out firsthand why Keith's instructional DVDs receive such positive testimonials from tattoo artists all over the world. If you have any interest in improving your realism techniques, this 4 hour/2 DVD package is an opportunity not to be missed.
In Keep it Real Volume 3, Keith offers an insightful glimpse into pet portraiture, which has recently become a popular- and sometimes surprisingly striking- tattoo motif. In Keith's approach you can see how his foundation in painting and other mediums translates into his painterly approach to handling subtle realistic color on skin. It shows pretty much the entire tattoo process over the course of 4 hours on 2 DVDs, with the whole procedure described in detail. It's meant for tattooists who already have a solid foundation of basic technique and are looking to take their realism work to the next level.Posted from Tattoo Education
New Book - Back & Large Pieces!
Tattoo Education
We are excited to add Back & Large Pieces to our catalog! Published by Brazilian editor Daniel Martino, this beautifully presented softbound volume showcases large work by some of your favorite artists from around the world. Representing premium examples of many different styles including Japanese, traditional, illustrative, biomechanical, realism and black&grey, Back & Large Pieces includes a number of full page plates from both Guy and Michele, shown in gloss printed detail that you just can't see on a screen. We now have this epic book in our catalog at tattooeducation.com!
BJ Betts & Big Meas 7 Book Combo Special!
This Week Only (October 16 - October 22)
Save $50 when you order the
Lettering 7 Book Combo for one Great price!
Includes the BJ Betts Combo & the Big Meas Combo
Click HERE for all the information!
Order this Combo and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $30.00 and anywhere else is $45.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)Posted from Tattoo Education
Coverup Trivia Question #6
Coverup Trivia Question #6
What about those really tough spots? Certain areas of the old tattoo are dark and scarred; how can I cover those parts?
It's all about smart design. If you think ahead you can often make use of the worst parts of the old piece in ways that make the coverup not only successful, but unexpected and original. See examples of this in Coverup: The Next Level, now included FREE in your Reinventing The Tattoo subscription, building on last year's foundation, Coverup: A Fresh Look. Find out more at www.ReinventingTheTattoo.com.
Coverup Trivia Question #5
Coverup Trivia Question #5
I've seen solid black tattoos where it was obvious where the coverup areas were. If solid black can't do it, then what can?
It's a simple answer: Detail. Clever use of detail can not only hide the old piece but also disguise which parts of the new tattoo are coverup and which aren't. We dis cuss many examples of this in Coverup: The Next Level, now included FREE in your Reinventing The Tattoo subscription, building on last year's foundation, Coverup: A Fresh Look. Find out more at www.ReinventingTheTattoo.com.
#tattoo #education #tattooeducation #coverup #coveruptattoo
(photo provided by @juan_salgado ...you can see his amazing coverup of this mess at his profile, or better yet, see it discussed in detail, along with many other examples by various artists, in your Reinventing The Tattoo subscription)
Posted from Tattoo Education
Coverup Trivia Question #4
Coverup Trivia Question #4
When I see large healed coverup tattoos, it's usually easy to pick out where the coverup areas are. How can I avoid this?
Let's say you're doing a backpiece to cover up a "tramp stamp" and a couple small shoulder pieces. You finish and step beck, and are mostly happy, but those coverup areas are just a little denser than the rest. Since this is impossible to avoid with many coverup projects, the answer lies in balancing out that density by adding it in a few areas that aren't coverup, in order to bring that look through the whole piece. Find out some practical strategies for this in Coverup: The Next Level, now included FREE in your Reinventing The Tattoo subscription, building on last year's foundation, Coverup: A Fresh Look. Find out more at www.ReinventingTheTattoo.com. #tattoo #education #tattooeducation #coverup #coveruptattoo
Posted from Tattoo Education
Coverup Trivia Question #3
Posted from Tattoo Education
Coverup Trivia Question #3
Can't you just blast over the old piece with skin color a couple times to lighten it?
Well, yes and no. When you apply layers of ink across multiple sessions, you are mixing pigments in the skin, so adding a lot of white or off-white pigment can limit how black you can get your lines later on. It is possible to get a lasting lightening effect by using white, but it may be a little different from what you'd expect. There's way more on this subject in Coverup: The Next Level, now included FREE in your Reinventing The Tattoo subscription, building on last year's foundation, Coverup: A Fresh Look. Find out more at www.ReinventingTheTattoo.com. #tattoo #education #tattooeducation #coverup #coveruptattoo
Coverup Trivia Question #2
Posted from Tattoo Education
Coverup Trivia Question #2
What is the Translucency Factor?
I've laid out six major "Coverup Realities", including the Translucency Factor. When a coverup tattoo heals and settles, you can usually see the old piece coming through, because the new tattoo isn't opaque like acrylic or oil paint- it's translucent, like watercolors. Find out strategies for working around this problem in Coverup: The Next Level, now included FREE in your Reinventing The Tattoo subscription, building on last year's foundation, Coverup: A Fresh Look. Read more at www.ReinventingTheTattoo.com. #tattoo #education #tattooeducation #coverup #coveruptattoo
Limited for 3 days only: Collaborative Guy Aitchison/Chris Hall Print
Posted from Tattoo Education
Crinklemech Hook
Signed canvas archival canvas print
$65 including shipping inside US
Painted by Chris Hall and Guy Aitchison during a collaborative tattoo project, Crinklemech Hook represents a unique crossover of organic abstract styles, and is graphically striking both up close and from a distance. At 14x14" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes, these archival canvas prints are signed by both artists and would look great in your workstation! $65 includes shipping inside the US (you can contact our manager for overseas shipping rates). Available until noon Central US time this coming Thursday, October 5th, and then it's being permanently removed from the catalog.
Coverup Trivia Question #1
Coverups are a pain. Why should I bother when I do my best work on clean skin?
No doubt you are already aware of how much potential business there is for an artist willing to do coverup work. But there's an important demographic of clientele who you really don't want to turn away. Who are these people? Find out in detail in Coverup: The Next Level, now included FREE in your Reinventing The Tattoo subscription, building on last year's foundation, Coverup: A Fresh Look. Read more at www.ReinventingTheTattoo.com. #tattoo #education #tattooeducation #coverup #coveruptattoo
Posted from Tattoo Education
Guy Aitchison's- Coverup: The Next Level- added to Reinventing The Tattoo
As tattoo clients start to get larger work, it is often up to their artists to steer them toward thinking larger scale, instead of filling up with small pieces. These artists will usually have the job of covering or incorporating earlier pieces, and if approached with the right mindset, these collectors can be guided into getting the kinds of large scale work that we are proud to have in our portfolios. Guy Aitchison's Coverup: The Next Level provides a clear foundation for not only tackling any kind of coverup job, but also for using coverup as an opportunity to get larger scale projects and a more serious clientele.
Building on last year's Coverup: A Fresh Look, Coverup: The Next Level has been added to the coverup chapters in the Reinventing The Tattoo curriculum, making it part of the most comprehensive guide to coverup tattooing anywhere in the industry. Reinventing The Tattoo now contains dozens of videos showing closeup tattooing with in-depth voiceover descriptions, along with hundreds of pages of richly illustrated text addressing every aspect of tattooing, including guest chapters by artists such as Phil Garcia, Megan Jean Morris, Halo Jankowski, Don McDonald, Russ Abbott and Nick Baxter. Drop by www.ReinventingTheTattoo.com to find out more!Posted from Tattoo Education
Please note: If you place an ORDER between 9/22- 10/1
we WILL NOT be shipping your order until 10/2.
Also, if you apply for ARTIST VERIFICATION,
we WILL NOT be able to verify until 10/2
Sorry for any inconvenience!!Posted from Tattoo Education
4 Day Sale - 30% off "Keep it Real 3" Plus FREE SHIPPING!!
GET 30% OFF Plus FREE SHIPPING! - September 18-21
Our 4 Day featured item this week is, Keith Ciaramello's 'Keep It Real 3' DVD. He offers an insightful glimpse into pet portraiture, which has recently become a popular- and sometimes surprisingly striking- tattoo motif. In Keith's approach you can see how his foundation in painting and other mediums translates into his painterly approach to handling subtle realistic color on skin. Anyone who orders our Featured Item gets free shipping on their whole order anywhere inside the US, so if you are planning on picking up some books or other heavy items, keep this in mind!
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING on your entire order!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $7.00 and anywhere else is $12.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)Posted from Tattoo Education
Featured Item - Ciavarro & Swanson COMBO! - SOLD OUT!!
Drawing is at the core of a well developed tattoo skill set, and this week's special is aimed at helping you bring your drawing skills up a few notches! Tony Ciavarro's two Shut Up And Draw DVDs give you a detailed over-the-shoulder look at Tony's drawing process, showing every step taken from rough sketch to completed color design, while Joe Swanson's Drawing Tattoo Style gets down to the nuts-and-bolts fundamentals of clear, readable, skin-friendly drawing. This week you can get all 3 of the disks for $125! This combo deal is our featured items, meaning not only free U.S. shipping, but anything else you order with it gets shipped free as well!
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $25.00 and anywhere else is $35.00. Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Posted from Tattoo Education
Featured Item - Guy's Biomech Tribal Tee
We have just dropped the price on Guy's Biomech Tribal tee shirt, featuring his timeless mech style in a low-key black on grey look. It's silkscreened on a high quality fitted shirt with designs on both front and back. Available in sizes M-2XL. This weekend it's our featured item, meaning not only free U.S. shipping on these shirts, but on any items ordered along with them. Drop by Hyperspacestudios.com to see the other cool wearable stuff in our catalog!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $10.00 and anywhere else is $20.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Special Edition Studio Print Now Available!
Since painting it in 2009, Mind Tree X has been one of the paintings that Guy has had the strongest response to, especially when people visit the studio and see it in person. Although we've had a print of this iconic piece available for some time, Guy never felt that it properly captures the subtle luminous essence of the original. Now that we have our own printer he's re-photographed it and done all the color matching himself, making for a much nicer print that is almost a dead-on match to the painting. So we wanted to let you all know that we are re-issuing this print at a generous 22x38" size, plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. Prints are on archival canvas and are signed and dated.
In addition, for one week only we are offering a special edition studio size print, perfect for your workstation at 16x28" plus mounting border. Prints can be stretched or traditionally framed. This is a perfect piece for your clients to get lost within while sitting under the needle. Available until September 6, 2017. Drop by www.hyperspacestudios.com/prints to see what we have in our print catalog!
Posted from Tattoo Education
Special Deals on Guy Aitchison's Massive TECHNIQUE Tutorial!
One of Guy Aitchison's hardest-hitting video tutorials is simply
titled Technique. It's a four disk set that shows you closeup footage
of the machine in action as Guy works through five different projects,
presented in a concentrated format. The first two disks are a special
edition cut of his 'Guy's Bag Of Tricks' webinar, showing a project from
start to finish as he answers a variety of questions from the audience
about design preparation, palette and the equipment and methods he's
using. The other two disks, Tightening 1 and 2, go into detail about
finishing techniques, spotlighting four projects up close, describing
every move in detail as Guy shows the line building, detailing,
smoothing and other development on a variety of effects including
floral, organic, mechanical, metallic and carved wood, with each piece
showed healed so you can see the kind of results that you can
realistically expect from working with these methods.
We're now offering this tutorial at a price of $125 for the entire
set. Or, even better, you can get it FREE with a subscription to
Reinventing The Tattoo, Guy's epic online educational package. If you
are already a Reinventing subscriber, simply log on and you'll find it
waiting for you at the end of Page 354.
(click on the pic below to see a video about TECHNIQUE)
Posted from Tattoo Education
Drop by ReinventingTheTattoo.com to read more about this package,
meant as continuing education for the professional tattoo artist.
Limited Edition Print - 'Organic Study'
Organic Study - Aitchison/McEwen Collaboration
(FREE shipping in the US - $15 to Canada - $30 Worldwide)
A couple weeks back, noted organic artist Ty McEwen visited Hyperspace Studios to work on a couple collaborative tattoos. While here, he and Guy completed a small oil study for one of the projects. This painting got such a strong response on social media that they decided to offer it as a limited run print. It's small (10x20" plus 1" mounting border) but packs a visual punch, and would look amazing at your workstation! Printing and color matching were done in-house on archival canvas, and are signed by both artists. Available until noon on July 10, then it will be removed from the Hyperspace print catalog forever!Posted from Tattoo Education
1 Hour Manager's Special
1 Hour
Monday - July 3, 2017
11AM - 12PM Central Standard Time!
For ONE HOUR every MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY
We will be offering ONE ITEM at a drastically reduced price!
Follow us on
and FACEBOOK:
To be alerted to the MANAGER'S SPECIAL SALE!Posted from Tattoo Education
"Aquatica" Available Now!!
(Premium edition on the left, special limited edition on the right)
Deano Cook is known for his flawless approach to marine realism, and Guy's reputation is mostly about his abstract biomech work. These two iconic artists bring together their styles and approaches in Aquatica, their debut collaborative painting project.
Due to such a strong response from their audiences, they have decided to release Aquatica in 2 canvas print formats, including a smaller limited run, 19"x28" plus a 1" border for mounting purposes, hand-signed by both artists, and a premium 26"x38" pre-stretched full-sized gallery edition.
Posted from Tattoo Education
Item of the Week - ENCHANTED!
This Week Only (June 12 - June 18)
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING
PLUS $10 OFF This Item!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $30.00 and anywhere else is $45.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Limited Edition of 1000 copies, with gold stamped faux red leather cover with gilded pages and a silk red ribbon bookmark
Dimensions: 8.5" x 11"
Hardcover, 336 pages
We've always been excited about books from Out Of Step Publishing, who search deep within the tattoo community to create fun, visually rich books based on a variety of subject matter. Enchanted does not disappoint: bound in a beautiful large-format limited storybook edition, with 366 pages of tattooing and other artwork exploring themes of fantasy, fairy tales, folktales, fables and other whimsical works of the imagination, done by over 500 different artists from all corners of the tattoo community.
Posted from Tattoo Education
NEW Limited Edition Print AVAILABLE NOW!!
It's been a while since our last limited print, so we are excited to offer a gallery reproduction of Guy's most recent painting, inspired by his excursions into the deep forest around his rural studio. This yet-untitled piece is the beginning of a series that Guy is feeling pretty inspired about, and you can adorn your home or workstation with a high quality color-matched signed archival canvas print of it for only $50. The print is 12x16" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. We'll have it in the catalog until Monday, June 12, then it will be taken down from the catalog forever.Posted from Tattoo Education
ITEM of the WEEK - TATTOO EXTREMITIES!
This Week Only (May 29 - June 3)
'Tattoo Extremities'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING
PLUS 10% OFF This Item!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $30.00 and anywhere else is $45.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Tattoo Extremities $50 - Sale $45
Hardcover, Published by Memento Publishing
240 full color pages, 10 inches by 10 inches in size. Featuring 170 Tattoo Artists with Over 800 photos!
Placement of tattoo art is an important facet of each design and has the power to turn each piece into an extraordinary aesthetic experience. Throughout the years, the extremities of the body have been utilized to tell stories, depict ritualistic significance, and serve as the canvas for exhibiting grand artistic projects. Though not all tattoo collectors choose to decorate their hands, heads, and feet, many of those who do expose the world to some of the tattoo industry's finest accomplishments - proudly displaying their artwork for all to see. This book features an extensive body of tattoo work from tattooists around the globe. These talented artisans provide us with distinct styles, genres, and creativity, all inked upon the far-reaching limbs of the body. Enjoy an intriguing artistic journey that honors those bold enough to wear the ink and the artists skilled enough to make their imaginative concepts come to life.Posted from Tattoo Education
TATTOO EXHIBITION Extended & Item of the Week!
Some of you may remember the historic tattoo exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum, where Guy was given the opportunity to showcase a backpiece design, complete with an impressive 3-minute documentary filmed by the Field Museum crew. Due to popular demand, this exhibit has been extended until this fall! If you are in the Chicago area or are planning on traveling there this year, we highly recommend dropping by the museum to check out this unprecedented exhibit showing not only historic objects and images from around the world, but also a comprehensive feature of contemporary artists' work on skin and canvas. You can check out a gallery of images from the exhibit on our Facebook page.
Speaking of tattoo exhibits, we have a unique book in stock that was printed alongside a tattoo exhibition in London in 2014. It features paintings and works in other media by an international cast of some of the biggest names in the industry, including one of Guy's most significant paintings for that year. Time: Tattoo Art Today is our featured item this week.
This Week Only (May 22 - May 28)
'Time: Tattoo Art Today'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING
PLUS 10% OFF This Item!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $20.00 and anywhere else is $35.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Time: Tattoo Art Today - Softcover 144 pages $50 - Sale $45
Over the summer of 2014, Guy Aitchison had a painting hanging in the Somerset House in the UK, along with pieces by such amazing artists as Filip Leu, Titine Leu, Horiyoshi III, Don Ed Hardy, Shawn Barber, Timothy Hoyer, Grime, Paul Booth, Chris Garver, Robert Hernandez, Marcus Pacheco, Jeff Gogue, Sabine Gaffon, Nick Baxter, Eddy Deutsche, Joe Capobianco, Bugs, Ichibay, Nikko Hurtado and Ami James. We have managed to secure a limited amount of the catalogs from the show, which come in the form of a large-format 144 page softcover art book. It's a thought provoking and beautiful art collection centered on the theme of Time, in a rich variety of artistic styles.Posted from Tattoo Education
5 Day SALE - Coverup: A Fresh Look
May 17 - 21
Order - Coverup: A Fresh Look, and receive $15 off the original price,
plus FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $7.00 and anywhere else is $12.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Coverup: A Fresh Look
DVD, 1 hour 45 minutes
As the tattoo art form continues to evolve and grow in popularity, knowing what to do about unwanted tattoos is becoming more and more crucial for tattoo artists. Despite the enormous artistic growth in tattooing over the past two decades, there still seems to be a fundamental gap in understanding what coverup tattooing is all about and how to avoid making dark, dense, obvious coverups.
Coverup: A Fresh Look was filmed at the 2015 Worldwide Tattoo Conference, and was designed to go over the most crucial theory behind what makes coverups either work or not work, and shows many examples in both photo and video form on several different types of coverup projects from small, single-pass pieces to large, epic transformations, and everything in between. It also goes into detail about the laser, showing several sample projects and discussing in detail the realities of the laser. Video examples are close up and detailed, and the live format also allowed for some insightful audience questions to round out the program. 1 hour and 45 minutes, for professional tattooists only!
Posted from Tattoo Education
Item of the Week - FEATHERS of INSPIRATION
This Week Only (May 8 - May 14)
is the Featured Item this week.
Save $11
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $30.00 and anywhere else is $45.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Feathers of Inspiration: The Bird Art Project features an extensive and brilliantly colorful collection of bird inspired artwork from around the globe. With a multitude of mediums included, our feathered friends are beautifully interpreted in thousands of different ways, by artists of many disciplines and genres. This collective project brings together an artistic treasure trove of inspirational work to celebrate the remarkable world of winged wonders.
This is a limited edition pressing with only 750 sets available, which are sure to be gone by the end of the year. Works include a number of pieces by our very own Michele Wortman, plus hundreds of other artists of a broad range of styles. They're great books for both artists and collectors which go over extremely well both as gifts and as reading material in the tattoo studio waiting room.Posted from Tattoo Education
April- Fine Art Print Promotion
For the entire month of April we are having specials on our fine art prints! All prints are on archival artists' canvas, signed and dated, with colored borders for mounting purposes. Some come ready to hang. This month we are offering"
Buy 1 Print
Get 15 % Off
Buy 2 Prints
Get 15% Off Plus
Buy 3 Prints
Get 25% Off
Plus FREE SHIPPING
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $25.00 and anywhere else is $35.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Print discounts and additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
You can see a detailed description of our fine art reproductions at Hyperspacestudios.com/prints.
For April 28-30, we are featuring:
Lightform VI - $200
By Guy Aitchison, Lightform VI, 2003.
Print is 21x27" with a 1" black border plus additional blank canvas for mounting purposes. Signed by the artist.
(Order the featured item and receive a Guy Aitchison postcard set, a $10 value for FREE!)
Posted from Tattoo Education
Save $40 on new Scratch Art / Innerstate Combo
Tattooers are often involved in all kinds of community projects, everything from group art shows to collaborations to publishing projects and much more. We have been involved in a few of these projects ourselves and have a couple cool books in our store as a result!
Scratch Art focuses on the scratchboard medium, which tattooers have done incredible things with; the book contains hundreds of examples of masterful pieces in all styles.
Innerstate was an event we hosted where we invited a group of tattooers to come paint for 5 days and complete an epic project in a group environment. The book we made from this event shows not only the finished pieces but also visits with the artists as they work side by side with their peers. It also includes a 50 minute documentary film celebrating the creative community that tattoo artists share.
You can get both these inspiring group project publications at a steep discount if you buy them together- $50 total instead of $90!
ITEM OF THE WEEK - DVD Combo!
This Week Only (March 27 - April 2)
Paint Tattoo Flash DVD - by Joe Swanson
& Illustrative Tattooing by Scott Irwin *COMBO*
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
Save $21 when buying the Combo!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $7.00 and anywhere else is $12.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Paint Tattoo Flash DVD - by Joe Swanson
2 DVDs plus booklet, over 2 hours running time
This course, made by veteran tattooer Joe Swanson, will take you step-by-step through the entire painting process. Learn what materials to use, how to tint your paper to give it a vintage look, how to use an age old technique called spit-shading to give your flash that unique tattoo look, plus tons of other useful techniques. The entire course is comprised of 8 sessions. High Quality picture-in-picture feature in videos 4, 5, 6, and 7 so you can easily see all the detailed shading technique instruction from different angles. This feature makes it so you don't miss a thing. Over 2 hours of total run time.
Illustrative Tattooing - by Scott Irwin
One thing that all illustrative styles seem to share is a rich language of narrative elements that can be drawn and tattooed in a variety of visually interesting ways. Scott Irwin's Illustrative Tattooing DVD is a great guide to approaching illustrative rendering on skin. It's a clever production that's jam-packed with information, including detailed and insightful looks into the execution of several different tattoos of different subject matter. It's a high quality production with a tight, well-lit view of each piece being done including a camera on the palette to show how he achieves his subtle color mixes. Each tattoo is edited to 30-45 minutes to show all the most critical parts, with Scott's voiceover describing exactly what's going on. There is also a bonus section showing his methods for setup and preparation, including some very clever tricks and ideas.Posted from Tattoo Education
ITEM OF THE WEEK: 'Inside Out' by Chris Dingwell
This Week Only (March 20 - March 26)
'Inside Out' by Chris Dingwell
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
PLUS - 50% off the price of the item!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $30.00 and anywhere else is $45.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
'Inside Out' by Chris Dingwell: $40 - Sale $20
"Painting in the tattoo world is not exactly a new thing, but tattoo people painting with the excellence that rivals the world's fine artists is." Johnny Thief on Chris Dingwell
Chris Dingwell is a respected and accomplished tattoo artist and fine painter, from the grotesque to the sublime this books chronicles the last 8 years of his painting career. His style is all his own and yet clearly he draws on technical skills that he has been honing for a life time, his work is alive, vibrant and engrossing and anyone who collects art, knows art, or studies art will get something of value out of this book. Each page draws the viewer into a world that is a bit surreal, sometimes chaotic but always visually mesmerizing. A perfect item to round out your art book collection. 10x10", approx. 150 pagesPosted from Tattoo Education
ITEM OF THE WEEK: Cranial Visions Softcover Edition
This Week Only (March 13 - March 19)
'Cranial Visions Softcover Edition'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $30.00 and anywhere else is $45.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Cranial Visions is a high quality, coffee table book published by Memento Publishing that is 8 inches wide by 12 inches tall, all 240 pages are printed in full color, featuring 258 artists with over 800 images! $60 - Sale $54
The fascinating and grim history of the skull has been a forceful subject matter throughout the ages. Maintaining prominence in the scientific and medical fields, it is also commonly interpreted through artistic endeavors, tracing back as far as creative collections have been recorded. This book features an immense volume of work which highlights the skull in all sorts of mediums, bringing together artists and works from all walks of life. Readers are invited to explore the fascinating and macabre world of the cranium-cetered theme. A spellbinding journey told through chromatically brilliant photos and words; this book is sure to awaken the mind and senses.
Chapters Include: Tattoos, Paintings, Sketches & Drawings, Mixed Media, Digital Art, Graffiti, Photography, and Skullptures. Available now in a softcover edition.
Unique New Round Framed Reproduction - Circle Hook
Circle Hook - Limited Edition Print
We are excited about the unique new print we are offering this month! Round art is typically very difficult to frame, so this print comes mounted in a high quality handmade painted frame, signed and numbered and ready to hang. Print is 10", frame is 13" overall and 1" deep. Limited to only 15, then this is gone from our catalog. $250 plus shipping!Posted from Tattoo Education
ITEM OF THE WEEK: Tattoo World
This Week Only (March 6 - March 12)
'Tattoo World'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $30.00 and anywhere else is $45.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Tattoo World by Marisa Kakoulas: $35 - Sale $31.50
Once considered part of the counterculture movement, tattooing is now undoubtedly a mainstream practice. Although the history of tattooing is rooted in ancient customs and beliefs, it is a constantly evolving art form, as skilled practitioners continually reinterpret traditional motifs and experiment with new ones. With more than 1,000 illustrations from 125 of the most important artists working today, this book is the most comprehensive survey of tattooing ever published. Collected here are designs from around the globe, spanning a broad range of styles, including Japanese and East Asian iconography, classic Americana, and photorealism, among others. Featuring the work of tattoo legends alongside pieces by pioneering artists pushing the limits of the medium, this visually arresting survey is the essential reference work for anyone interested in this exploding art form.
Posted from Tattoo Education
ITEM OF THE WEEK: Zombie Caricatures
This Week Only (February 27 - March 5)
'Zombie Caricatures: Infections and Exaggerations'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $30.00 and anywhere else is $45.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Zombie Caricatures: Infections and Exaggerations
Hardcover 160 Full Color Pages 8.5 x 11 $30 - 10% off sale $27
The content of this book showcases the work of some of the best caricature artists in the world. Sean Gardner and Nick Mitchell have managed to take something that is super difficult and make it look effortless. It takes a different type of artist to be able to pull off a great caricature. Not only do you have to capture the likeness of each victim, but you also have to figure out what it is that makes them unique and stand out in their own way. Then, you have to figure out a way to bend those unique features as far as you can without losing the essence of what makes that individual who they are.Posted from Tattoo Education
ITEM OF THE WEEK: Time: Tattoo Art Today
This Week Only (February 13 - February 19)
'Time: Tattoo Art Today'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING
PLUS 10% OFF This Item!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $30.00 and anywhere else is $45.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Time: Tattoo Art Today - Softcover 144 pages $50 - Sale $45
Over the summer of 2014, Guy Aitchison had a painting hanging in the Somerset House in the UK, along with pieces by such amazing artists as Filip Leu, Titine Leu, Horiyoshi III, Don Ed Hardy, Shawn Barber, Timothy Hoyer, Grime, Paul Booth, Chris Garver, Robert Hernandez, Marcus Pacheco, Jeff Gogue, Sabine Gaffon, Nick Baxter, Eddy Deutsche, Joe Capobianco, Bugs, Ichibay, Nikko Hurtado and Ami James. We have managed to secure a limited amount of the catalogs from the show, which come in the form of a large-format 144 page softcover art book. It's a thought provoking and beautiful art collection centered on the theme of Time, in a rich variety of artistic styles.Posted from Tattoo Education
February Limited-Run Print Available Now!
This month's limited-run print, Fissure, is part of Guy's recent Surface & Space series of paintings. This one is small (8x10" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes), printed on archival canvas and signed by the artist, and we are offering it for $35 this week only and will ship anywhere in the world. It will be removed from the catalog permanently at midnight this coming Sunday, February 12. The original piece is still available as well; you can DM Guy at his Instagram profile, @guyaitchisonart, if you want more information about this or other original pieces.
Posted from Tattoo Education
ITEM OF THE WEEK: The ART of the LEU Family!
This Week Only (February 6 - February 12)
'The ART of the LEU FAMILY'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING
PLUS 10% OFF This Item!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $30.00 and anywhere else is $45.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
The Art Of The Leu Family
Paperback, 190 pages, $60 - Sale 10% off: $54
The tattoo world has long been familiar with the Leu Family, in particular the iconic Swiss tattooist Filip Leu. Filip's work has long been sought after by serious collectors for his unique take on the Japanese theme. But Filip is also a painter and artistic explorer in many ways, and comes from a family tradition steeped in rich creativity. Many tattoo fans are aware of the paintings of historic tattoo figures by Filip's wife Titine Leu, the wild surreal ink drawings and tattoo work by his father Felix, the hypnotic mandala paintings by his mother Loretta. And the family creativity goes even further, starting with Felix's mother Eva Aepelli, and his sister Miriam Tinguely, then including many of Filip's siblings.
Digital Tattoo Design Rendering Now Added to Reinventing The Tattoo
Reinventing The Tattoo has just had three hour-long Photoshop seminars added! Have you ever wondered how to use Photoshop to get those seamless professional design results that you see people posting? Guy has just added his Wacom Weekend seminar: Digital Tattoo Design Rendering to the Photoshop chapters of Reinventing. This class is about an hour long and goes into detail about how you can use Photoshop to get high-end results with your designs. Drop by ReinventingTheTattoo.com to read more about Guy Aitchison's comprehensive educational package for professional tattoo artists.
Tattoo Education
ITEM OF THE WEEK - 'Sketched Out'!
This Week Only (January 27 - February 6)
'Sketched Out'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING on your entire order!!
Sketched Out: An Assortment of Sketches by 100 of Your Favorite Artists!
9″x12″, softcover, 272 pages, $40.00
Get a glimpse into an artist's creative process with this collection of sketches by 100 of your favorite artists! In sketching, the artist finds the freedom to create without limits or judgement, to play with ideas, to make mistakes and to experiment. This book delves into the minds of several of the best contemporary artists as well as some of the best tattoo artists in the world and examines their creative processes. How do they realize what it is they wish to create? How to they decide what works and what does not? The sketches in this book showcase the method behind a work of art, and provide an insider view into the imagination of various top notch artists in the tattoo community.
Posted from Tattoo Education
Photoshop Compositing Tutorial Now Added to Reinventing The Tattoo
Reinventing The Tattoo has been expanded again. Are you curious about how to use Photoshop to smoothly bring together images from several sources, including online material and your own drawings? Guy has just added his Wacom Weekend seminar: Essential Design Compositing to the Photoshop chapters of Reinventing. This class is about an hour long and goes into detail about how you can bring Photoshop into your design workflow. Drop by ReinventingTheTattoo.com to read more about Guy Aitchison's comprehensive educational package for professional tattoo artists.Tattoo Education
Please note:
If you place an ORDER between 1/13 - 1/24
we WILL NOT be shipping your order until 1/25.
Also, if you apply for ARTIST VERIFICATION,
we WILL NOT be able to verify until 1/25
Sorry for any inconvenience!!Posted from Tattoo Education
Photo Retouching Tutorial Now Added to Reinventing The Tattoo
Reinventing The Tattoo just became even more useful. Ever wondered how you can turn those pretty-decent snapshots of your finished work into a professional-looking portfolio, or how to prepare them for a magazine feature? Guy has just added his Wacom Weekend seminar: Photo Retouching and Portfolio Work to the Photoshop chapters of Reinventing. This class is about an hour long and goes into detail about how you can improve your photos without improving the tattoo. Drop by ReinventingTheTattoo.com to read more about Guy Aitchison's comprehensive educational package for professional tattoo artists.
Posted from Tattoo Education
January's Limited Print: Quadrant
Posted from Tattoo Education
January's Limited Print: Quadrant
For this month's limited run print we are celebrating the New Year by offering a limited run of Guy's recent abstract work, Quadrant, which is one of his favorites from his recent body of paintings. Quadrant is an exploration of how things that look chaotic up close can have a surprising structure and harmony when seen from a distance. It's get this high-quality archival signed canvas art print for $50. It's 12x12" with a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. Available until January 15, 2017 at the Hyperspace Studios online store.
ITEM OF THE WEEK - 'Hair of the Dog'!
This Week Only (January 9 - January 15)
'Bob Tyrrell: Hair Of The Dog DVD'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING on your entire order!!
Bob Tyrrell: Hair Of The Dog DVD
Bob showed up on the tattoo scene a couple decades back and immediately gained notice for his smooth, original approach to black and grey realism. He has a talent for translating iconic images into strong, clearly readable realistic tattoos with a unique balance of graphic strength and subtle realism. Hair Of The Dog explores animal portraiture using Bob's technique, and is loaded with artistic and technical wisdom that is sure to be useful for tattoo artists of all levels of experience. Pet portraiture is a big market, and this tutorial not only goes into the animal subject in detail but contains many great nuggets that could be applied to almost any artistic style. If our experience tells us anything, you may only have a couple days before they are sold out!
Perennial Print Specially Priced for January!
Guy's 2014 painting about rebirth and renewal, Perennial, is now being produced in-house on our new printer and looks great... for the duration of this January you can now get this high-quality archival signed canvas art print for $50. It's 12x15" with a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. Available now at the Hyperspace Studios online store.
Posted from Tattoo Education
Item Of The Week: Coverup- A Fresh Look
It's great to push ourselves every day as artists, and in the tattoo profession this effort can pay off in tangible ways. What better excuse to treat yourself to an educational experience, than an upcoming New Year? Our Item Of The Week is my recent DVD release, Coverup: A Fresh Look, which is an in-depth seminar going into both the theory and technique of doing effective coverups of all kinds of different bad tattoo challenges. Even if you've done a ton of coverups, this seminar goes right to the heart of the matter using closeup video footage and is loaded with useful tricks that you can put to use right away. Since it's our Item Of The Week, that means not only do you get free shipping in the US, but any other items you order along with it will be shipped free as well.
Another great DVD to start 2017 is Bob Tyrrell's Hair Of The Dog, an in-depth and well explained exploration of black and grey animal portraiture, as told by one of the industry's masters. Bob's easygoing teaching style makes it easy to follow and relate to while he explains his common sense approach and meticulous application. We only have a few left in stock; order it along with Coverup: A Fresh Look, and get shipping on both items for free!
Posted from Tattoo Education
And I might as well remind you about all the new additions to the Hyperspace Studios print catalog, now that we are able to handle printing in-house. Order any of these prints along with our Item Of The Week to take advantage of the free shipping. Treat yourself this New Year, and take your skills to the next level!
This Week Only (December 28 - January 8)
'Coverup: A Fresh Look'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $5.00 and anywhere else is $15.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Posted from Tattoo Education
This Week Only (December 19 - December 25)
'Reinventing The Tattoo: TECHNIQUE'
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get FREE SHIPPING!!
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $5.00 and anywhere else is $15.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)Posted from Tattoo Education
New Collaborative Art Print by Brian Geckle and Guy Aitchison!
2016 has been a great year for collaboration here at Hyperspace Studios, with large scale two-artist projects on skin happening every month and a few paintings and other projects being passed around as well. Visionary tattooist Brian Geckle was just here so that he and I could start a new calf sleeve project and wrap up a back piece, so while we were both present we did the color matching and test printing for the reproductions of the painting we finished earlier this year, Pineal Manifestation, which celebrates the far reaches of the imagination.
The new print came out great, and we are offering it as a 12x22" archival canvas reproduction signed by both artists. The print is archival for 125 years and includes a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. We've just signed the first batch of them... available now at the Hyperspace print gallery!
Tattoo Education
It's Not Too Late to Surprise Your Loved Ones With Art Gifts!
So the countdown is on, and there's very little time left before the shipping cutoff for ordering holiday gifts. We have a few suggestions to make that might simplify things- how about a few unique art books produced within the tattoo community? There are many titles available covering all different subjects, and I'd like to show you a few examples of what we have in the Hyperspace catalog.
Out Of Step Books has been consistently putting out anthology books that allow many artists to contribute their unique visions regarding specific subjects- for example, Antennae Of Inspiration is all about insects and other small creatures, interpreted by many of your favorite artists in all kinds of mediums. Their books are thick and loaded with hundreds of pages of high-quality material; drop by the Hyperspace book store to read more descriptions of the various volumes of theirs that we carry.
Posted from Tattoo Education
We also have put together a few book combo packs that can save you a little money while providing some unique choices. The Tattoo Community Project Pack is one of the best examples. One of the most exciting things about being part of the tattoo community is how many cool projects there are to get involved with... More than any other art scene, tattooists tend to be very comfortable working together on collaborations, performances and other art projects, allowing them to explore a wider range of techniques and styles than an artist would just working by themselves. Over the past decade we have been involved in a number of such projects, all of them very different from each other but each exploring a different aspect of vision, creativity and collaborative energy. In The Tattoo Community Project Pack, we feature books and DVDs from four of these projects: The ArtFusion Experiment, Scratch Art, Innerstate and Pint Size Paintings. You can read about these projects, and the books and DVDs that they spawned, at the Hyperspace book store.
These examples just scratch the surface; drop by the store at Hyperspace Studios to see more, including some low priced stocking stuffer gift packs. Shipping in time for Christmas is guaranteed on all US orders placed by the 16th of this month, and shipping on all fine art prints is free until that date.
Some Last-Minute Art Gift Ideas
Michele has been very artistically active this fall and wanted to be able to offer some art ideas as gifts, which inspired her recent low-priced print Red Lotuses, which has been a top seller this week, along with one of her latest, Trio, also priced for a stretched-out holiday budget. For you last-minute gift seekers, she has gone ahead and stretched a limited number of the Red Lotuses canvas prints on archival stretcher bars, making for a perfect gift- since it's ready to hang right out of the box! Prints come signed, are archival for 125 years, and are available in a limited quantity for the unprecedented price of $50 each. Drop by the Hyperspace print gallery to see what else we have there.
Tattoo Education
In addition, Michele has lowered the price on her classic visionary art book Moments Of Epiphany by almost 50% for the holidays. Moments is a book of abstract photography that highlights Michele's unique and luminous artistic vision. Perfect to open and share with family on Christmas day, it's filled with colorful abstract wonder. On sale now at the Hyperspace online store. US orders received by the 16th are guaranteed for delivery before Christmas.
New Videos, Interviews And A Great New Print!
Recently, Michele and I had the honor of being interviewed by Jake Meeks of the Tattoo Improvement Network when they visited Hyperspace Studios. It was hard to keep it short, since we had so many interesting topics to cover, so it ended up being published in three half hour segments, which are now all posted at the Tattoo Improvement channel on YouTube. These interviews are both fun and information-filled, including plenty of historic detail from the past 30 years of the evolution of the tattoo profession. I think this material would be of interest to both artists and tattoo fans; drop by the Tattoo Improvement channel to check it out! Jake also published a review of Reinventing The Tattoo, my electronic educational package, which I thought was thorough and well written. If you're thinking of treating yourself to a subscription for 2017, check out his review to get his perspective.
Speaking of videos, Michele just posted a new 1-minute video highlighting her recent body of paintings. It's a short and contemplative little segment that gives you a close-up look at the personality of these new works; pour yourself some hot coffee and take a look! She also just posted a new print of one of these recent paintings, Trio, which is moderately sized- 8x16" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes- and moderately priced at $35. Order before the 16th of this month and not only is shipping guaranteed before Christmas for US orders, but the shipping on all print orders before that date is free. High quality signed archival canvas prints make excellent gifts, by the way.
Posted from Tattoo Education
Fine Art Prints Make Excellent Gifts- With Free Shipping Until December 16th!
You may be wondering exactly what to get for your artist or art fan friend or family member. A nice original painting by one of their favorite artists would be a spectacular gift, but let's face it, that's probably not in most of your budgets. This is one of the reasons why we've invested in a high quality fine art printer and begun expanding our print catalog this fall- when done right, a fine art print made on archival canvas, signed by the artist and framed or presented the right way, can have a presence on a wall that compares to that of the original, but at a fraction of the price.
We added a new one to the catalog today with a special price for the holidays. Michele Wortman's newest painting, Red Lotuses, is being offered as a moderately sized print at the special price of $25 until the 25th of December. It combines her modern minimalist aesthetic with a splash of bold color, and will pop out from any wall. The print is 9x12" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. We do our own color matching and have gotten near-perfect print results on this one, and I'm proud to add it to the Hyperspace catalog.
We recommend looking over our entire print catalog, since we have prints of all sizes, styles and price ranges to choose from. We've included a choice sampling of some of them in this bulletin in case you want to take a closer look. Best of all, we are offering FREE SHIPPING on all print orders placed in the US before December 16th, and all orders received by then are guaranteed for delivery before Christmas.
In case you are wondering how to frame or present your gift, you have a few options. Prints come rolled up safely in a cardboard tube and can simply be wrapped and given in that form, allowing the recipient to frame it to their taste. You can also find a ready-to-use frame at your local hobby store, which sometimes works really well, especially on the standard sizes such as the 9x12" Red Lotuses. Simply buying canvas stretcher bars and stretching the canvas also makes for a great presentation, but we only recommend this if you have some experience stretching canvas. Last but not least, you can talk to your local frame shop about more deluxe options.
Posted from Tattoo Education
Whatever your presentation may be, fine art reproductions can bring a lot of excitement at gift-giving time... drop by our print gallery to see what we've got.
This Week Only (December 5 - December 11)
Eight Arms of Inspiration: The Octopus Art Project
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get free shipping on your entire order.
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $15.00 and anywhere else is $30.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Click HERE to go to item!!Posted from Tattoo Education
New Limited Print Offer Makes a Perfect Holiday Gift!
I've been looking forward every month to each limited print offer that we've been featuring, since it's been an opportunity for me to really see what you all respond to. We've been featuring a variety of classic and newer paintings of mine in a series of moderately sized and priced archival signed reproductions that are offered for a few days only and then taken down from the catalog forever, and the response has been very encouraging.
This week I'm putting up one of my classic images, PodCoil II, from 1999. This was one of my early experiments with building clay models to get my lighting and texture more realistic, and still stands out as one of my more iconic images from that period. The print is 11x14" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes, and has been carefully color matched for maximum impact. Signed, archival for 125 years, $50. Available only until December 7, then it's being taken out of the catalog forever.
My partner Michele's latest print, Star Of Bethlehem, is still available and makes a stunning gift for anyone with a modern sense of aesthetic. Due to the unexpected response, she's extended her special holiday pricing until next Wednesday as well; it's 6 images that work as a single reproduction, 20x24", signed on archival canvas, $75. You can read about its special symbolism on her Instagram profile, or check it out at the Hyperspace print gallery where it's listed next to my new limited print.
Posted from Tattoo Education
We are very excited about the high quality of prints we are getting now that we are producing them in-house, and these two new prints are great examples of the kind of gifts (including gifts to yourself!) that quality fine art reproductions can make. Drop by the Hyperspace print gallery to see what else we have available.
Today We Start Rolling Out Some Limited Holiday Deals!
As we close out November and the dust settles from all that Black Friday chaos, we wanted to offer a few great gift options for the artist or art fan in your life which you can shop for from the safety of your living room. Many of you are likely already familiar with a lot of the books, DVDs, art prints and other art related items that we carry at tattooeducation.com and hyperspacestudios.com, and we encourage you to take a quick browse through the online catalogs at both websites to see what we have available. Today, though, we are offering some single day promotions that you may want to take advantage of.
For starters, we've had many of you ask what is the best way to gift someone with a subscription to Reinventing The Tattoo, my comprehensive electronic educational package for tattoo artists. Reinventing is far more than just an electronic edition of a book, but also contains a great deal of video and other multimedia material and is constantly growing- later this month, for example, I'll be adding three new Photoshop video tutorials that relate directly to things that tattoo artists might need to do with their images. Reinventing is the most detailed educational package available in the tattoo industry today, and has been read by thousands of artists worldwide across over 20 years; it can now be offered to a friend or coworker through a gift certificate. Order before December 16 and we'll mail the recipient a shiny card with instructions for logging in… and better yet, order before midnight tomorrow night (11/29) and get $50 off!
In addition, Michele wanted to celebrate the holiday season by offering a special deal on prints of her latest painting. Star Of Bethlehem is actually six small pieces that were painted as one, and then separated into six complimentary compositions. All of them are grouped onto a single print on archival artist's canvas, 20x24". This stunning reproduction is being added permanently to the Hyperspace print catalog, but for today's special she has reduced the price to $75. Her carefully balanced subtle color schemes go well with just about any decor, making her prints ideal gifts.
Last but not least, don't forget that we have a featured item this week, Keith Ciaramello's 'Keep It Real 3' DVD. He offers an insightful glimpse into pet portraiture, which has recently become a popular- and sometimes surprisingly striking- tattoo motif. In Keith's approach you can see how his foundation in painting and other mediums translates into his painterly approach to handling subtle realistic color on skin. Anyone who orders our Featured Item gets free shipping on their whole order anywhere inside the US, so if you are planning on picking up some books or other heavy items, keep this in mind!Posted from Tattoo Education
This Week Only (Nov. 21-28)
Paint Tattoo Flash by Joe Swanson
is the Featured Item this week.
Order this item and get free shipping on your entire order.
(FREE SHIPPING to US orders only. Shipping to Canada is $5.00 and anywhere else is $10.00.
Order more items and get the shipping special on your WHOLE order!!
Any additional shipping charges will be refunded when order is filled)
Click HERE to go to item!!Posted from Tattoo Education
Share Your Tattoo Story at the Chicago Field Museum Tattoo Exhibit!
Like so many artists in the tattoo field, I began my career with the assumption that I would always be working in the shadows, having dedicated myself to a fringe art form with only borderline social acceptability. 28 years ago when I started my apprenticeship there was only one convention, one magazine, a smattering of low budget books and documentaries, and not much more. So I have been continually amazed at the progression of our art form into a solid bastion of mainstream culture complete with a whole list of TV shows, conventions and other world-class events, not to mention a whole branch of publishing in many media dedicated solely to the tattoo art form.
The latest accomplishment our industry had made is none other than a full-scale exhibition on tattooing that is traveling through a number of mainstream museums and bringing in record crowds- first in Paris, then in Toronto, and now at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, which happens to be the very same museum that I went to as a kid to look at dinosaurs.The exhibit includes ancient tattoo artifacts, stunning photos and films of tattooing from cultures around the world, along with a bunch of original art by artists who you've probably heard of. The centerpieces of the show are a group of silicone body casts that have been tattooed by a number of hand-picked artists to showcase some of the more established genres within tattooing, everything from tribal to traditional American to geometric to fine line black and grey, plus a couple biomech pieces. I was invited to produce a backpiece for the exhibit, which was both an honor and a real task, with as much work invested into the piece as a real backpiece on a human.
You can be a part of this exhibit too! The museum put together a website specifically for the exhibit at www.fieldmuseum.org/tattoo/. At this page you can get instructions on how to use your Instagram or Twitter account to post your own tattoo story, which is then displayed on a big screen on the wall of the exhibit room. Many of the stories are fascinating, and I believe that the participation of tattoo collectors brings a whole extra dimension to the exhibit. If you are in the Chicago area, this exhibit is a must-go destination... There simply has never been anything like it before. This is not a quick, pop-culture glimpse at tattooing, but instead is an incredibly well researched, heavy-duty legitimate museum exhibit about our art form. In the shadows no more!
I also wanted to mention that at TattooEducation.com we are now offering a featured item every week that will get you free shipping on your entire order. This week we are featuring Mario Rosena's Shoot It Right, which is an extremely helpful (and reasonably priced) tutorial on photographing fresh tattoos, filmed by a veteran extreme sports photographer who also happens to be an excellent tattooer. If you buy Shoot It Right alongside other items that have high shipping fees, you could save a lot on shipping costs. Stay tuned to see what featured items we have up next.
Tattoo Education
New 2016 Bloom Project Video, plus November's Limited Print
This past weekend, Michele Wortman celebrated her 18th year of tattooing by putting together a Bloom Project video portfolio showing some of her most epic work. Michele has been a quiet but persistent influence on tattooing for much of this time, pushing for a softer, more feminine approach with a minimal use of black outlines and an emphasis on the overall look of each person's collection, with all work being balanced, even on collectors who are not aiming for a full bodysuit. She has referred to these unified collections as "bodysets", and this new video showcases this look beautifully. Drop by our YouTube channel, TattooTelevision, to take a look, or just click the screen shot in this newsletter. You can see more of her colorful work at www.MicheleWortman.com.
I also wanted to mention the November limited print. This one is called Construction II, and is part of the collection of original paintings that I currently have on display at the Off The Map Gallery in Easthampton, Massachusetts. As with all the limited prints, this one is smallish and priced affordable- it's 10x15" plus a 1" colored border for mounting purposes. Prints are archival for 125 years and signed/dated. We are making the prints in-house so I have final say over the color matching. This print will be offered until midnight EST this coming Sunday, November 6. Drop by the Prints gallery at Hyperspace Studios to see the full range of creative reproductions that we have available.
Surface & Space Exhibition Now In Massachusetts!
As some of you may know, I had my first major art gallery appearance in many years this past July at Sacred Gallery New York, sharing the room with fellow artist Adam France in our joint exhibition Surface & Space. For anyone who was not able to make it, most of the pieces are now on display at the brand new Off The Map Gallery in Easthampton, Massachusetts, attached to the gigantic new Off The Map tattoo studios. We will be having an opening reception this coming Friday October 8, in conjunction with the local Artwalk event. For those of you already in the area or visiting town for a tattoo or any other reason, this should be a fun party; Adam and I can't be there in person, but will be attending via Skype and will be taking questions from gallery guests. It's a chance to see these pieces in person before they are shipped off to their new homes. A few of the originals are still available, plus I am offering a limited edition print of one of the pieces, Surface 1, which will only be available until this coming Sunday, October 9 at midnight.
I also wanted to remind you of the Paradise Tattoo Gathering later this month, October 20-23, also in Massachusetts in the beautiful alpine setting of the Jiminy Peak resort. The event features a whole list of seminars by a variety of artists, including two courses by me: the first one, Coverup: The Next Level, is a follow-up on the coverup seminar I held last fall at the WorldWide Tattoo Conference in Portland, Oregon. This time though I'm featuring all new material, including work by a variety of different artists, plus I'm asking participants to bring photos of their own coverup challenges to discuss on the big screen. The other class, Flow & Fit: A Hands-On Workshop, is a series of short lectures on the theory behind making attractive work that fits the human form, with exercises between each lecture so that participants can put that theory into practice while it's fresh on their minds.
We are also offering a package deal- sign up for both courses and you can get a subscription to Reinventing The Tattoo for 50% off! If you are already a member, you can apply this offer toward a gift subscription, or toward renewing your own membership. We also carry weekend and day passes to the Paradise Tattoo Gathering, which are needed in order to attend any seminars.
Posted from Tattoo Education
October's Limited Edition Print Available Just This Week!
Last month, we celebrated the new large format fine art printer in our office by offering a limited run print of one of my classic images. I'm continuing that tradition this month by presenting one of my more recent paintings as a limited edition canvas fine art print, which will be available in our online store for this week only. "Surface 1" was one of the early experiments in my current Surface/Volume series where I'm exploring ways to make surfaces express depth and dimension. It's a piece that has had a strong response from my peers, so I thought it would be fun to offer it as a life sized signed archival canvas print at a reasonable price. This print is 12x12" with a 1" colored border for mounting purposes, and we are pricing it at $50. We've done the color matching and printing ourselves, so it's a very close match with the original.
This is another print that we are offering for a limited time only, until midnight Sunday October 9th. Drop by the online store at Hyperspace Studios to see it, and the other new prints that we have in our catalog.
Huge Update in the Guy Aitchison Tattoo Galleries!
It's been a while since I've had the chance to go through my tattoo photos and prep them for my online galleries. Too long, in fact... so when our friend Durb Morrison asked me to do an interview for Tattoo Magazine, it gave me the excuse to sit down and go through all these photos, pick my favorites, and do the necessary cropping and cleanup necessary before posting them in my galleries at HyperspaceStudios.com and GuyAitchison.com. You may have seen a lot of these pieces posted on social media, but not in this kind of detail- the galleries at our websites feature large, high resolution images so you can really see the detail work in these large pieces. It's a big body of work that I feel pretty excited about, drop by either site to check it all out!
I also wanted to remind you of the print gallery we have at Hyperspace Studios, featuring high quality archival canvas reproductions of some of our favorite paintings. We've recently acquired a large format printer and are adding new images to the catalog on a weekly basis. Drop by the print gallery to see what we've got... all reproductions are archival for 125 years, signed by the artists and perfect for your home or tattoo studio.
Reinventing The Tattoo Guest Writer Phil Garcia!
One of the most exciting things about the new electronic edition of my educational package Reinventing The Tattoo is the participation of a variety of guest writers who all excel at different styles and subjects in tattooing. So far this year we have added chapters by Russ Abbott, Nick Baxter, Megan Jean Morris, Halo Jankowski and Don McDonald on subjects ranging from color theory to client relations to large format stenciling. These writers are allowing us to expand the Reinventing curriculum to encompass the interests of the entire tattoo industry, making it potentially useful to almost anyone, regardless of style or level of experience.
So we are particularly jazzed about adding the chapter by Phil Garcia, who many of you know as being the artist who has completely redefined the rose tattoo and brought it to a new artistic level. Phil's roses are not only realistic, but perfectly proportioned to the body part, bold and clear, with just the right exaggerations to make it read nicely on the skin and hold up to aging. In his new chapter, Attention To Detail, Phil spells out his process in a concise step-by-step format with in-depth discussion of some of the things that he considers to be the most important aspects of his technique.
There are several more guest contributions in the works at this moment, which Reinventing The Tattoo subscribers can look forward to seeing added to the content over coming months, along with upcoming expansions to the coverup chapters along with countless other improvements. Reinventing is not just an e-book, but is a dynamic educational experience that is continually evolving to fit the needs of today's tattoo professional. You can take a look at our new video promotion to see the Reinventing The Tattoo electronic edition in action.
Posted from Tattoo Education
More New Prints... Plus The Next Biomech Contest!
We are pretty excited about our new printer, after last month's limited run produced such great color results. So we have added a few more classic Aitchison images to the print catalog in a variety of moderately priced sizes. These three paintings are all featured in the book Organica, and were chosen for their strong graphic impact which translates beautifully to canvas prints. One of them, Lightform 4, had previously been available as a high quality archival print on watercolor paper, which is still available; but it is now also being offered in a larger size on artist's canvas. All three images have been carefully color matched by the artist to look as close as possible to the originals, and are archival for 125 years. We also wanted to bring attention to Michele Wortman's hypnotic new print, Potential, which is available in two different sizes which can fit beautifully in any space. The print catalog will continue to expand over coming months, so stay tuned!
We are also kicking off a new contest today at the @Biomech_Collective on Instagram. If you have any interest in abstract tattoo design, drop by the @biomech_Collective profile and see the results of our last contest, Architectural Mech, which concluded last night at midnight. This current series of six contests is unique in that, rather than choosing three winners and ranking them 1-3, we are simply looking for the highest quality images, which will then be included in the upcoming Biomech Encyclopedia book project with full credit given to the artists. This is your chance to be a part of this epic project and to show the community what can come from your unique vision. Drop by the contest page at Tattoo Education to read more! Entries are due by September 27, 2016.
Last but not least, we have produced a video ad for the new electronic edition of Reinventing The Tattoo. If you are curious about this unparalleled educational experience, take 2 1/2 minutes of your time to check out the video, which should give you a good idea of what we have to offer and what you can hope to gain by becoming a subscriber.
New Fine Art Prints Available Now!
For many years Michele and I have carried fine art giclee prints of some of our favorite paintings. This year, though, we finally decided to take the plunge and purchase our own large format fine art printer. You can look forward to seeing many new high quality archival prints on canvas, watercolor and gloss paper over coming months, but we wanted to start you out with a couple new editions.
The new permanent addition to our catalog is Michele Wortman's recent painting Potential, which celebrates birth, renewal, and the vast palette of experience that life has to offer. We are carrying it in two sizes, one of them original size and the other a slightly smaller version which may work better in some interior settings. Prints are signed by the artist and, according to the printer manufacturer, archival for 125 years! This is one of Michele's favorite new pieces and she is excited to be able to offer it as a fine art print.
I'm trying something a little different this month. I've got many, many images that I'd like to present as prints, but I don't necessarily want a catalog a mile long. So this month I'm offering a limited edition print of a painting that I did in 1996, but still feels relevant today in terms of how it fits into my current body of work. Mind Tree IV was one of my most successful lighting exercises at that time, when I was trying to figure out realistic lighting for both painting and tattooing purposes, and can be found in my art book Organica. I'm carrying it as an affordable, moderate sized print, but it will only be available until midnight on Wednesday, September 7, at which time it will be removed from the catalog. All prints are signed and dated.
Thanks, and we'll keep you posted as we roll out more new ones!
Gallery Opening - "Surface & Space"
So I want to mention this since it's coming right up... I haven't had a serious gallery appearance in almost two decades so I'm pretty psyched about this! We've timed the opening to be the night before the #empirestatetattooexpo in mid July, so be sure to fly in a night early to catch this! I'll be sharing this gallery show with my bio brother @adamfrance and we've both been jamming away at producing a new body of work that will include a lot of new paintings, some major tattoo pieces and a number of sculptural works. There will be a couple collaborations as well. Come drop by @sacredgallerynyc and join us on opening night! #tattoo #art #tattooart #abstract#psychedelic #visionaryart #gallery#openingPosted from Tattoo Education
New Tutorial Available- Coverup: A Fresh Look
The first seminar I ever gave, over 20 years ago, was on the subject of coverup tattooing. As the tattoo art form continues to evolve and grow in popularity, knowing what to do about unwanted tattoos is becoming more and more crucial for tattoo artists. Despite the enormous artistic growth in tattooing over the past two decades, there still seems to be a fundamental gap in understanding what coverup tattooing is all about and how to avoid making dark, dense, obvious coverups.
So I've been gathering photos and video clips over the past five years or so which I've just finished crunching into a comprehensive tutorial. For subscribers to Reinventing The Tattoo, it comes free with your subscription as a part of the curriculum. Simply log on and check the Table Of Contents, and you'll find it in Part 8. It includes chapters on several different types of coverup projects from small, single-pass pieces to large, epic transformations, and everything in between. It also goes into detail about the laser, showing several sample projects and discussing in detail the realities of the laser, including a lengthy FAQ that you can share with your clients when talking about the possibility of laser treatments. There is also a chapter on scar coverups, with examples of surgical scars, burn scars, electrical burns and other types of scarring, with strategies for effectively tattooing over even the trickiest skin.
In addition, the tutorial includes a recent video production of mine. Coverup: A Fresh Look was filmed at the 2015 Worldwide Tattoo Conference, and was designed to go over the most crucial theory behind what makes coverups either work or not work, and shows many examples in both photo and video form, alongside a detailed discussion of each example. The live format also allowed for some insightful audience questions to round out the program. This video comes free as part of your Reinventing subscription, or can be purchased separately as a DVD for non-subscribers.
Posted from Tattoo Education
If you are not yet a Reinventing The Tattoo member, it's a subscription-based educational package that gives you access to the entire Reinventing curriculum, which comes in a combination of e-book and video format and covers everything from the fundamentals of good tattoo design to working with references, using digital tools, expanding your skills through painting and other mediums, plus exhaustive chapters on tattooing technique. Since the electronic edition was released in October we've been steadily expanding the curriculum with guest chapters by Russ Abbott, Nick Baxter, Megan Jean Morris, Don McDonald and Halo Jankowski, plus new chapters by me about rotary machines and needle cartridges. We have a chapter in the works from realism maestro Phil Garcia, plus a number of other guest chapters that we'll be adding throughout the year by some of the industry's biggest names. The coverup chapters are just one of the many things that we've added this year to this expanding, high-power educational package. Drop by ReinventingTheTattoo.com if you want to read more about it.
Now In Stock: Reinvent Yourself, A Photoshop Tutorial Specifically For Tattooists!
For the past two decades of my tattoo career, I've been using Adobe Photoshop as an essential part of my workflow in everything from design compositing to portfolio page layout. It's been such an important tool that I've included it in the core of my Reinventing The Tattoo educational package since its first edition back in the late Nineties. The current electronic edition of Reinventing was recently edited to bring it up to date with today's version of Photoshop, with plenty of tools and tricks specifically intended for the tattoo artist's workflow.
If there is one thing I've learned about Photoshop, it's this- Every Photoshop user will have something to teach you. I recently watched a new video by Halo of Black Lotus Tattoos in Maryland called Reinvent Yourself: In Depth Photoshop for the Tattoo Artist. It's also meant specifically to be useful for tattoo artists, but he's got a whole range of tricks that I'd never heard of in 20 years of using Photoshop. It's an in-depth tutorial that shows you a live screen capture of a number of demonstrations, all which are useful for use in tattoo design. He covers subjects such as:
- Basics even for a beginner
- Learning each tool step by step
- Correcting very poor references
- Manipulating photos for tattoo designs
- Making caricatures of people
- Merging two photos to make one
- Painting out unwanted background
- Endless color choices
- Making a perfect ink palette from a reference
- Making a flawless stencil to save time and stencil ink
It's a downright useful tutorial and will give you a lot of bang for your buck- Halo has taken not only his experience but all the stuff that he learned in a digital art college course that he thinks is the most useful to tattoo artists, and distilled it down into an hour and forty minutes of smoothly produced information. You can even open the DVD on your desktop and then open Photoshop right next to it, and try out the things that he's demonstrating. I highly recommend Reinvent Yourself for all Photoshop users- even if you have lots of practical experience with Photoshop, I assure you you'll learn something from this course. We've got in in stock now in our online store.
Reinvent Yourself is a great compliment to a DVD set we already carry: Get Digital, by Mike DeVries and Jamie Parker. Get Digital covers a lot of fundamentals, but approaches it much differently than Reinvent Yourself. It's geared toward projects such as business cards and banners that can be of immediate use in your practice, along with many great tricks for working with reference material. Save on shipping by ordering both DVDs, and you'll have a comprehensive library of Photoshop tricks and tools that is sure to get you up to speed and working with digital tools in a way that empowers you as a tattoo artist.
Learn the Fundamentals of Painting Classic Tattoo Flash!
Back in the days of my apprenticeship, one of the first things I was asked to do was draw flash- twenty full pages of it before I would be allowed to pick up a machine. Flash drawing was a totally new skill for me to learn, and to make matters more complicated, my boss asked me to do the first set using ink washes, the black and white cousin of watercolor painting. It was an adventure to say the least, and a great learning experience that helped to prepare me for the steep learning curve of actual tattooing.
Drawing and painting flash remains an important skill, not only for apprentices but for any tattoo artist who wants to reach a wider audience than they can personally tattoo, or simply wants to share their own unique style with other artists (and possibly sell a few sets now and then!) So it's great news that Joe Swanson has made a detailed, comprehensive tutorial on painting tattoo flash step-by-step. The 2-DVD set, simply called Paint Tattoo Flash, covers every step from selecting the right materials to design transfer, inking, coloring and finishing touches, plus bonus sections on practice exercises and antiquing effects. The set comes with a small booklet that you can keep with you at your drawing table for a quick guide. It's a highly useful and practical tutorial, aimed at getting you functional from a point of starting with zero knowledge but still demonstrating some fairly advanced techniques, all for a very reasonable price. We've got it in stock now at the Hyperspace Studios online store!
While we are talking about watercolors I also wanted to mention Myke Chambers' Watercolor 101 DVD, which overlaps in a few places with the material in the Joe Swanson tutorial but also ventures into all kinds of other interesting places, working with a larger scale design, comparing watercolors with liquid acrylics, different methods of color blending and lining, and taking longevity into account. Both tutorials are highly recommended, and you can save on shipping by ordering them together. Learn all about watercolor techniques with these two great painting tutorials by experienced working tattoo artists. Drop by the Tattoo Education online store to find out more!
An Innovative Sketchbook Idea For Tattooists!
For many years I've had the practice of taking photos of my clients' blank body parts, printing the photos at low contrast, and then doing my sketching directly on these photos. It's a great way to get an overall scope of the shape and flow of the design and to make it fit the body nicely. It's not always possible to get blank body photos though, and the extra steps are sometimes hard to make the time for... that's why I'm so psyched that Memento Publishing, who brought us the epic Tattoo Prodigies and Tattoo Prodigies 2 books, has released The Body Sketch Book. It's a classic spiral bound paperback sketchbook made using high quality Canson acid free drawing paper, but it comes with the blank body parts already printed on its 150 pages, low-contrast and ready to use, both for upcoming clients and just for doodling new tattoo ideas.
Having the body part available isn't just for making your drawing fit the client. Working directly on the images in The Body Sketch Book is a great way to inspire yourself to think in terms of flow and fit, which can lead to different approaches to design, even in cases where you don't have a client and are just wanting to draw. The body parts are printed in non-photo blue, so you can use a photocopier to duplicate your drawings with the body parts invisible. This item is highly recommended, and would be a perfect low-cost gift for your favorite artist. Or just treat yourself- in my experience, anything that can give you a good start in your tattoo drawings will put you ahead of your game. We have it now at the Hyperspace online store.
Announcing The Beta Phase of the Reinventing The Tattoo Electronic Edition!
Ever since the second edition of my flagship educational package Reinventing The Tattoo was released, I've daydreamed about making an electronic edition which could be updated to keep up with the rapid pace of change in our industry. It's been a long time in the making, but we now have the beta edition of the Reinventing e-book available, and I couldn't be more excited! For starters, it's given me a chance to go back through the entire text and rewrite parts of it to reflect our current understandings of tattooing, plus it was a chance to get the Photoshop chapters current and talk about the changes happening with equipment. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. This new edition is subscription based, with the goal of adding new content regularly so that your Reinventing experience is constantly evolving and can be customized to your path as a developing artist. The current version offers:
> Updated chapters from the original book
> Instant access to all supporting video material
> New chapters from guest writers Nick Baxter, Russ Abbott and Megan Jean Morris
> Handy format that adapts to any device and works well on your phone
> Access to new forums focused on critiquing
As we get into full swing over coming months, we will continue to refine and build the curriculum and the interface to include such things as:
> Text or email notifications of new material
> Smoother and more intuitive interface
> Special version focused on apprenticeships
> New tutorials including an acrylic painting workshop and an updated look at coverup tattooing
> Additional guest chapters from many of your favorite artists!
During the beta phase, we are offering a special one-time discount to subscribers with the understanding that you will be helping us to make the Reinventing educational experience as perfect as possible. That includes not only helping us find small glitches in the format, but also to give us your suggestions about what you'd like to see added to the experience. There's already more to offer than the classic book/DVD package (which is now out of print) ever had, so hop on board and be part of the group of professionals that helps us make the transition into the new dynamic electronic format! Special pricing will only be in effect for a few more weeks. You can subscribe now at the Tattoo Education online store.
Posted from Tattoo Education
Now Available: Sketched Out, A Book Of Sketches By Your Favorite Artists!
We're always psyched to add a new anthology book to our catalog, and we can count on Memento Publishing to deliver- they've consistently put out some of the most compelling books available in the tattoo world, including the recent Tattoo Prodigies II, in which I'm proud to have a few pages of my work. Their most recent release, Sketched Out, is nothing but pure fun: Sketchbook pages from 100 tattooists from a variety of styles and artistic backgrounds. It's a thick, large format softcover book at a reasonable price, making it a must-have for any collection.
Some of my personal favorites featured are Chet Zar, Gunnar, Cory Norris, Tom Strom, Mike DeVries, Brett Herman, Jamie Lee Parker, Terry Ribera, Joey Foote, Oleg Turiyanskiy, Pooch, Phil Robertson, Spencer Caliguri and Kate Crane. This just scratches the surface of the broad variety of styles this book has to offer. Perfect for your personal collection or waiting room, available now at the Hyperspace Studios online store.
I also wanted to remind you all of the contest we have going this month at the @Biomech_Collective Instagram feed: The Biomechanical Skull. We've already seen literally hundreds of amazing entries, but this is a subject that I think a lot of you could really sink your teeth into. The contest closes on Halloween, and judging results will be announced shortly thereafter. Prizes include some cool skull-themed books from the Tattoo Education online store, with the grand prize being an original collaborative painting (still in progress, or I'd show it!) done by myself and Kurt Windish, my co-conspirator at @Biomech_Collective. Let's see your gnarliest, most surprising and original take on this subject... there's still time!
The Bloom Project!!
This Halloween I celebrate my 17th year as a tattooist, and can think of nothing better to commemorate these years then seeing my friend and client Mindy on the cover of Tattoo Magazine! She has been getting work from me for the entire span of my career, and is one of the first ladies to get a floral form bodyset which I am known for. Her collection helped pave the way for others to follow by inspiring such a beautiful look on such a lovely lady. Mindy is part of the Bloom Project, which started with a desire from me to see a more unified and flowing female esthetic in tattooing. In addition to the use of soft, feminine imagery in my work, I've always emphasized laying the tattooing out on the body in a way that is balanced like a nice garment- rather than thinking in terms of bodysuits, I've come to think of the collections I put on my clients as "bodysets". Many of these sets began with shoulder cap coverage gradually becoming full sleeves and beyond.
I have been documenting this process, and the Bloom Project is a direct result of passion, dedication and a desire to push the evolution of this project further. This has resulted in a core clientele who are all representives of the Bloom Project. I chose this title as many of my clients request floral motifs from me, and I've found that the process of unfolding through layers of ink, adding on over time, and the personal transformation that occurs, can be likened to the process of a flower bloom opening. We are all in a state of becoming and growing from our experiences. I have a great appreciation for the beauty and wonder of Nature which I believe we are all a part of. From my clients to my artistry, this is the energy that we synchonise with and resonate from.
Check out some updates in the Bodyset gallery, and check back soon as I continue to update MicheleWortman.com. I have added some more Video portraits featuring the ladies of the Bloom Project. There is also a copy of Mindy's current spread in Tattoo Magazine posted in my Press gallery. Drop by the site and take a look. Give a follow on the Facebook Bloom page and at Michele Wortman, where I post updates on the Project and art related news as well.
Posted from Michele Wortman
The Portland Worldwide Tattoo Conference is just weeks away!
The Worldwide Tattoo Conference has always been one of the more unique events in tattooing, with the entire focus being on educational seminars rather than squeezing them in around a lot of tattooing and contests. I've enjoyed teaching at these events because the audience tends to be made almost entirely of intelligent, open-minded artists who are there to learn and network. So I'm psyched about this upcoming WWTC in Portland, Oregon October 19, 20 and 21.
My class this year will be called Coverup: A Fresh Look, and will be a solid two hours of nuts-and-bolts technical guidance about the most up-to-date methods for hiding old tattoos without making a dense new piece. This will include plenty of closeup video footage of the needle at work, along with enough time at the end of the session to answer audience questions. I haven't done a coverup seminar in a very long time, so I'm amped to talk about all the things that I've learned about the subject in recent years.
Tickets for the WWTC include all seminars and discussion panels, and the lineup this year is solid gold. I'll be teaching alongside some of my favorite tattooists in the industry including Nick Baxter, Jeff Gogue, Nikko Hurtado, Adrian Lee, Alex De Pase and Ralf Nonnweiler... Even the great Horiyoshi III will be skyping in!
Tickets are available now at TattooEducation.com. Airline tickets are reasonably priced right now- why not treat yourself and get a brainful of knowledge and inspiration? Thanks, and I hope to see you there!
Coming Soon: The Portland Worldwide Tattoo Conference!
The Worldwide Tattoo Conference has always been one of the more unique events in tattooing, with the entire focus being on educational seminars rather than squeezing them in around a lot of tattooing and contests. I've enjoyed teaching at these events because the audience tends to be made almost entirely of intelligent, open-minded artists who are there to learn and network. So I'm psyched about this upcoming WWTC in Portland, Oregon October 19, 20 and 21. I'll be teaching alongside some of my favorite tattooists in the industry including Nick Baxter, Jeff Gogue, Nikko Hurtado, Adrian Lee, Alex De Pase and Ralf Nonnweiler... Even the great Horiyoshi III will be skyping in!
Here's a short interview that I just finished with the WWTC promoters:
WWTC: How do you feel the new wave of educational seminars have affected the tattoo at large?
G: I think it's clear that the high level the tattoo art form has reached has a lot to do with the sharing of information that's been happening in the tattoo community, a tradition which began at the conventions and still remains centered at tattoo related events.
WWTC: What do you love the most about Tattooing?
G: It's hard to define what I think makes tattooing so great... I was drawn to it as if to a powerful magnet at a young age and the interest only deepens as I spend more time with it. I think that some people are just fortunate enough to find that thing which fits them perfectly, and I am certainly one of those people.
WWTC: Do you feel anyone can be a great tattooer like you? What are the essential ingredients to being a great tattooer?
G: If tattooing fits you perfectly then you'll create work that fits others just as well. It will take time, dedication and hard work to find your groove. Remember that what you do matters, and that you are affecting the lives of others. Finish every tattoo as if it were on your own skin, with care and attention to detail. Your clients will notice the difference.
WWTC: What will people learn from you at the WWTC?
G: This October I'm focusing specifically on coverup tattooing, taking an updated look at the possibilities and limitations, with plenty of step-by-step photos and up close video footage of the machine in action. I'll be getting into great technical detail about my very nuanced approach to hiding old work without making a new piece that's obviously a coverup.
You can get more information, and order tickets, at the Products page at TattooEducation.com. I hope to see you there!Posted from Tattoo Education
Reference Photo Art Contest Happening This Month!
As some of you may already know, I co-host the @Biomech_Collective Instagram page along with my friend Kurt Windish. This month we're holding a contest there inspired by all the great reference photos that have been popping up in the #biomech_collective hashtag feed. It's important to get people involved in the genre, enthusiasts as well as artists. While the weather is prime we would like to encourage everyone to get out and explore the microcosmos! We will be holding a two-part contest, as such:
Part 1 (Photo Reference Contest)
Post reference material that is in any way relevant to biomech design, tagging @biomech_collective and #biomech_reference . Mechanical, organic, natural, or industrial... good lighting is important. Remixes of other artists' work or photos will not be eligible; we want original creative photos. But almost anything else is fair game!
Posted from Tattoo Education
Part 2 (Art From Reference Contest)
Make a piece of abstract art based on one of the many references posted by contestants from Part 1 of the contest. All photos from the #biomech_reference feed are available to use for your art reference, including combinations of multiple images. Post your artwork on your Instagram profile, tagging @biomech_collective and #biomech_reference .
Judging for part 1 happens August 5, and for part 2 on August 21. Prizes will include shirts, art prints, critiques, original art and the grand prize package including an Inkjecta Flite V2 tattoo machine! If interested, please read the full list of rules at TattooEducation.com/contest/, where we also have listed all of the prize packages we'll be offering.
Now In Stock: The Much-Anticipated Force In The Flesh 2!
OK, so there are a lot of Star Wars nerds in the tattoo industry. Don't ask me how or why that happens to be the case, but I'm personally guilty of being one of them, having ridden my bike countless times through dangerous traffic to see The Empire Strikes Back as a teenager. The Star Wars films, to me, were not only a great cinematic adventure but also an example of what a crew of creative people could do if they set their minds to it... and a reminder that the instructions that come in a model kit are really just suggestions. If you want to use the parts of a battleship to make a star cruiser, all the more power to you.
So it was fun to be invited to submit work to the original Force In The Flesh Star Wars Tattoo Art project a few years back. Star Wars fans in the tattoo industry were still just starting to emerge from the woodwork, so it felt like being part of an exclusive club. SW tattoos are way more common now, and with so many incredible artists doing their take on the theme, it was inevitable that a follow-up book project, The Force In The Flesh 2, would need to be published. Force 2 has just rolled off the press and it is indeed a powerhouse book, far thicker and more visually rich than its predecessor. As a tattoo book goes, it not only celebrates the Star Wars story in a graphically dazzling way but shows the incredible capability of the tattoo art form today.
We still have a handful of the first edition in stock, but they are going fast- literally, I can hold them all in one hand. If you are interested in a copy of Force 1, now is your chance. But the new edition is a bigger, thicker volume with a dizzying array of Star Wars tattoo work from a broad variety of artists working in different styles, everything from traditional to realism and everything in between. It'll make a great addition to your art book collection or waiting room library... and we have them in stock now at our online store.
I also wanted to mention that I have a new painting listed at eBay. This one was just completed the other night, and is a 12x12" acrylic spatial study from a series that I'm presently working on. I've got it framed and ready to hang... drop by our eBay store to take a look at the listing.
Wacom Weekend Coming Right Up... And New Aitchison Painting on eBay!
With our Wacom Weekend digital workshop coming up in only a few weeks, Russ Abbott and I are busy preparing the material for our classes that we'll be teaching there. This is a big deal for us, with it being both of our first effort at presenting this kind of fundamental computer graphic education for tattoo artists. We both have used digital art tools for many years and feel that it's given us an important advantage in our tattoo workflow, so having this chance to share our experience is a big deal, made possible by the backing we're getting from Wacom Inc, maker of popular graphics tablets, and the Hell City Tattoo Fest, where we'll be holding these classes on May 1 and 2 at the Downtown Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio.
I speak to a lot of artists about their struggles and it seems that getting past the basic digital hurdles is one of the big ones. It's something that took me many years of trial and error to get past, since there were so few tattooists using computers back in those early days. Now it's a different story, and we've designed our weekend curriculum to help tattooists with both beginning and advanced levels of digital experience, with everything from Photoshop 101 to detailed digital tattoo design. We'll have Wacom Cintiq tablets on hand to make sure that all participants get hands-on time with the equipment under our close instruction. If you've ever wanted to know more about using computers to expand your tattoo vocabulary, I can't think of a better opportunity than this one. You can get tickets now at the online store of our sister site, www.tattooeducation.com.
I also wanted to mention that I've just listed a new acrylic painting on eBay, fresh off the easel from two weeks ago. It's one of my painterly realist texture studies, which I filmed the painting process of for a tutorial I just taught at the Paradise Artist Retreat in New Mexico last week. It comes in a handmade gloss black frame, signed and dated, ready to adorn your workstation or art room wall. It's listed now at our eBay store.
March Special at Tattoo Education!
We are psyched at the way our new website turned out, and wanted to celebrate with a March special. For any tattoo professionals who order $250 or more from our catalog this month we'll send you a free copy of the Worldwide Tattoo Conference DVD. It's a great disk in terms of both information and inspiration... my own experiences teaching at these events have always been hugely inspirational, with a good sized group of hard working tattooers taking two days just to soak up information. The WWTC DVD is a great recap of the event, with choice samples from many of the talks given there.
I also wanted to remind you of the upcoming Paradise Artist Retreat, from March 31-April 2. I'll be teaching at that one, alongside a group of artists including Nick Baxter, Jeff Gogue, Tony Moore, Gabe Leonard, Hannah Aitchison and Chet Zar. There are only a few tickets left... if you are available that week this is an event not to be missed, in the spirit of the WWTC event but hands-on and relaxed in a beautiful environment. We have tickets now at the Tattoo Education online store... plus tickets for this year's WWTC, which will be happening in Portland, Oregon.
Coming Soon: The Paradise Artist Retreat!
Two years ago, Michele and I were involved in organizing the Paradise Artist Retreat at the Tamaya Resort in New Mexico. We had invited renowned visionary artists Alex and Allyson Grey as feature artists there, and the workshops they hosted were extremely well received. Other workshops, including Shawn Barber's late night Ala Prima session, left a lasting impression on the artists who attended. It was a beautiful experience, with a great core group of artists taking over this quiet desert mountain resort, getting rejuvenated after the long winter and going home inspired and ready to start the spring season. It was definitely one of the highlights of our year: high-energy inspirational workshops followed by drinks by the fire, under the stars.
So we're psyched that the next Paradise Artist Retreat is coming right up. This year I'll be hosting a hands-on painting workshop, where I'll be showing you my methods for creating convincing 3D effects on canvas. It'll involve both an early evening instructional session and a late night hands-on art jam. This will be my first workshop of its kind and I've got plans for it that I hope will make it both useful and memorable for everyone. Tuition is included in the weekend ticket price, along with workshops and seminars by an incredible roster of instructors including Jeff Gogue, Chet Zar, Nick Baxter, Tony Moore, Gabe Leonard and my sister Hannah Aitchison. Tickets are available now at the Tattoo Education online store, including tickets with special group rates. There are only 20 spots left, so now is your chance! We also offer tickets for the LiveStream edition- if you can't make it in person but want to take part in the experience online, you can stream the whole thing in HD to your home or studio.
Posted from Tattoo Education
Hot Off The Presses: Tattoo Prodigies 2!
Tattoo Prodigies 2 has been 2 years in the making, and it's finally here! This is a high quality, hardbound coffee table book that is 10 inches wide by 13 inches tall and about 2 inches thick. This book is a monster, weighing in at 9 pounds! All 600 pages are printed in full color and include 170 hand-picked tattoo artists with over 2,000 photos, 68 artist interviews plus a collaboration section in the back of the book.
Mike Devries, who published both Prodigies volumes under his Memento Publishing label, says of the project: "What amazes me the most, besides the awesome tattoos, is all the similarities in the interviews- the work ethic and determination, the passion for the art and the respect, amongst many other things." Tattoo Prodigies 2 has double the amount of artists, with over twice as many pages as the first Prodigies, yet it sells for the same price. In addition to its mind-boggling art, the book also features inspiring stories and interviews throughout, and a lot of the interview questions are not your typical questions you would get in most interviews- you'll have to read it to find out. Not only is this book eye candy for ink collectors and artists alike, the content is sure to motivate those seeking to advance and learn. Pick up your copy today and enjoy an inspiring journey!
Michele Wortman's Bloom Project Featured in Tattoo Magazine, and in a New Video!
Michele Wortman is known in tattooing for her innovative body sets. She has been designing a signature look for her mainly female clientele throughout her tattoo career. Starting with a desire to see a more unified and flowing female esthetic, 15 years ago, Michele embarked on an artistic journey to redefine more options for women wanting a lighter softer, balanced look within their tattoo collection. Many of these sets began with shoulder cap coverage, and gradually Michele's clients found themselves inking their way down to full sleeves and beyond. She began documenting this process, and the Bloom project was born.
Michele identified with the word Bloom as many of her clients requested floral motifs from her, and she likened this process of unfolding through layers of ink, adding on over time and personal transformation to the similarities of a bloom opening to flower.
Michele has inked several body sets and is currently working on an art book showcasing the lovely ladies she has been honored to tattoo and their process of collecting work through the years. The book will feature in-depth photos of her work as well as many of her clients who have come to be known as The Bloom Sisters. She is currently taking on new clients with this project in mind as well as trying to finish up work in progress in time for the 2020 publication.
You'll be able to meet The Bloom Sisters in an ongoing series of articles in Tattoo Magazine, starting with a feature on Kristen Blinne in issue #304, which is on newsstands now. Michele has also produced a short video about the Bloom Project, offering a sneak preview of what you can expect when the book is released.
Posted from Michele Wortman
Available In Time For Christmas: Michele's New Hand-Retouched Metal Prints
Happy Holidays,
As we close 2014 with a celebration of the season and welcome the New Year I thought it would be a good time to offer some of my favorite recent paintings to add to your art collection as unique prints on sheet aluminum. Several of these I have taken further by repainting the ferns, flowers and other details directly into the print making each one an original mixed media piece. You can see the detail examples below. The overall look is modern, shimmery and ready to hang. The surface, both reflective and painted, adds to the dimensional shift of luminosity. These would look great as a grouping or as individual pieces.
I also have a collectors' card set for only 5 bucks featuring a nice sampling my paintings, a perfect stocking stuffer.
Shipping in time for Christmas is guaranteed for all orders received by December 16. Thanks, and have a great season and happy New Year!
New Ask Guy Critique Column, Plus A Few Great last-Minute Gifts!
So another edition of my Ask Guy column has hit the newsstands, this time another one centered around a critique of another artist's work. Art critiques have been a standard part of artists' educations since time immemorial, and are something that you'll encounter at art school quite frequently. Many of us in the tattoo industry haven't run across this practice very much, though, which can make it tricky to get honest feedback from others in the profession. I've been enjoying the critique format of the Ask Guy column and have had some very positive feedback. You can see the latest edition in Tattoo Magazine #305, which is available now and also includes a fun interview that I did with artist Adrian Dominic, plus a lot of other fun stuff. You can also check out the column in the Ask Guy archive at my educational website, www.tattooeducation.com.
I also wanted to mention a number of gift pack options that we carry at the Hyperspace Studios online store, some which present a collection of items that can really help fill out your gifting list. This includes things like the Book Jamboree Gift Pack, which has copies of my book Organica, Michele's book Moments Of Epiphany, the multi-artist effort Scratch Art, plus high-quality collector's cards from both Michele and I. Alternately, there is the Tattoo Community Project Pack, which includes a number of books and DVDs about big artistic projects done within the tattoo industry including Scratch Art, the book and DVD set Innerstate, the tiny yet epic Pint Size Paintings book and Paul Booth's documentary The ArtFusion Experiment. Each of these combo packs gives you a great collection of items at a discounted price. Take a look through the Hyperspace Studios online store for more ideas- we guarantee shipping in time for Christmas on all US orders received by December 16th.
Vibrant New Art Print From Guy, Plus Major Gallery Update!
When I completed my recent painting Radiant Flux, I had a lot of positive feedback, with a number of people asking me for prints. So it's finally been photographed properly and archival fine art canvas prints are rolling off the presses right now. They're a good mid size- 16x20"- with a wide border to allow for easy mounting. We are also offering it pre-stretched, so if you know of someone that this eye-catching image would be a perfect gift for, it can arrive stretched and ready to wrap in your favorite gaudy holiday wrapping paper. It's in the print gallery now at our online store, along with a broad catalog of other prints by both Michele and myself. We can guarantee shipping in time for Christmas on all US orders that come in by Dec.16.
We've also updated my New Paintings gallery with 17 new images from this past year. In addition to Radiant Flux, I've also added 16 organic studies that I did over the past 6 months. Anyone who follows me on Instagram has likely seen at least some of these, but the Hyperspace galleries give you the full collection of uncropped images at a much higher resolution.
New Skeletal Anthology Book, Plus Another Painting On eBay!
We've enjoyed all the great anthology books that have been released in the past few years by publishers such as Memento Publishing and Out Of Step Books, featuring work from diverse selections of artists, sometimes hundreds in a single volume. This would include books such as Tattoo Prodigies, Antennae of Inspiration and the more recent Cranial Visions, featuring a fun sampling of skull-and-bone themed work in every imaginable style and medium. Now comes a new release, Excavate, which presents a collection of macabre and thought-provoking skeletal art on skin, canvas, paper and sculpture by a list of artists too long to include here. It's over 400 pages, hardcover and laid out in a way that will keep you coming back and opening its pages, discovering something new each time. It's a great gift or a perfect addition to your studio or waiting room book collection, available now at our online store!
I also wanted to mention that I've listed another painting at eBay. This one is acrylic, 7x9", from 2009, and is signed and framed. It's an organic spiral from a period when I was exploring a crusty new direction with my texture and depth. Drop by our eBay store and check it out.
Exciting new gallery catalog, limited run!
Over the summer I had a painting hanging in the Somerset House in the UK, along with pieces by such amazing artists as Filip Leu, Titine Leu, Horiyoshi III, Don Ed Hardy, Shawn Barber, Timothy Hoyer, Grime, Paul Booth, Chris Garver, Robert Hernandez, Marcus Pacheco, Jeff Gogue, Sabine Gaffon, Nick Baxter, Eddy Deutsche, Joe Capobianco, Bugs, Ichibay, Nikko Hurtado and Ami James. It was a humbling experience to be invited to be shown alongside these talents, and for the show I produced Zero Hour, which is available as an archival canvas art print at the Hyperspace Studios online store. Anyway, we have managed to secure a limited amount of the catalogs from the show, which come in the form of a large-format 144 page softcover art book. It's a thought provoking and beautiful art collection centered on the theme of Time, in a rich variety of artistic styles. It's available now in our online store.
I also wanted to mention that Wacom has extended the promotional code for their Cintiq display tablets until Sunday, November 9. It's a tattoo industry specific promotion that saves $50-100, depending on which model you choose. This is in addition to a temporary lowering of the prices of these units, so that the baseline model of Cintiq Companion, the DTHA1300L is only $999 with the promotional code. Just enter TATTOO_GRWEB in the promotion code box at checkout. At any rate, these are great devices that can bridge the gap between digital and analog, allowing you the most intuitive way to draw directly into your Mac or PC using the software of your choice. You can get more info at Wacom.com. If you've been thinking about picking up a Cintiq but balked at the price, this is your chance.
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
Posted from Tattoo Education
Now Available: Feathers Of Inspiration, An Epic New Art Book Set!
Over the past few years, Jinxi Caddell of Out Of Step Books has assembled a number of incredible tattoo art anthology books, most of which we carry at the Hyperspace Studios online store. These include the recent releases Eight Arms of Inspiration and Antennae of Inspiration, hardcover large-format coffee table art books featuring hundreds of pages of art from a long list of incredible artists, including many of your favorites along with many that you'll be discovering for the first time. They're great books for both artists and collectors, and I can tell you from experience that they go over extremely well both as gifts and as reading material in the tattoo studio waiting room.
So we are psyched to be adding the latest one, Feathers Of Inspiration: The Bird Art Project, to our online catalog. It's a project that became so massive that they chose to break it up into two separate volumes, one of just tattoos and the other of all kinds of other mediums including oils and acrylics, watercolors, drawings, sculptures, photography and more. This is a limited edition pressing with only 750 sets available, which are sure to be gone by the end of the year. Works include a number of pieces by our very own Michele Wortman, plus hundreds of other artists of a broad range of styles. You can find this incredible book set now at our online store!
I also wanted to mention that I have another painting from my book Organica posted on eBay this week. This is a little guy, 3x4" inside an extra-thick gloss black frame that can be hung or placed on a shelf, and would make a great little addition to your home or studio art collection. The small, affordable pieces from Organica are mostly gone at this point, so now is your chance to pick up a part of this collection.
Thanks, and I'll be in touch soon!
New Ask Guy Now in the Newstands... Plus Another Organica Painting Listed at eBay!
For my monthly Ask Guy column in Tattoo Magazine, I've gotten a great variety of questions ranging from artistic to professional to healing concerns, and I've been enjoying the diversity of conversation. This month, though, I'd like to touch on something a little different. We all know that tattooing can have an ugly side- as the artistic standards rise to amazing heights across the profession, the garbage being done on skin by untrained scratchers just looks worse and worse. These folks are also all too willing to tattoo minors, which we discuss in detail in this month's edition. But I believe that even situations like this one can be resolved in a positive way with a great tattoo. It's on newsstands now, or you can see it, along with all past columns, at the Ask Guy page at our sister site, www.TattooEducation.com.
I've also just listed another original oil painting from my book Organica on eBay. We've already moved one of them, and will be listing a number of these originals over the coming months. All of them are framed, signed and dated. Drop by the eBay store now to see the current bid, and follow me on Instagram or Facebook for updates on the latest posted pieces.
Guy Aitchison Now Listing Original Paintings on eBay!
Now that I've been getting back in front of the easel and am cranking out some new paintings, I thought it might be time to go through some of my favorite unsold pieces and list a few of them on eBay. So I've selected 16 pieces, all featured in my hardcover art book Organica, and will be rolling them out once a week over the course of the summer. These are original pieces done in either oil or acrylic paint, with most of them mounted in handmade black wooden frames. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook if you want to see announcements of new pieces being listed as they go up. The pieces being listed range in both size and price from very small and affordable to some pieces that are much more deluxe. You can take a look at the first auction right now and see what's been listed so far.
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
Great New Oil Painting DVD By Ian McKown, Available Now!
I've always encouraged tattooists to try working in other artistic mediums, particularly in oil or acrylic paint, because developing a stronger and more well-rounded set of art skills always translates to better tattooing. And painting can be so immensely enjoyable too. We haven't had a new oil painting DVD in the catalog since Shawn Barber's long-sold out Foundation Oil Painting DVD, so we are excited to announce the latest addition to our catalog. It's by Ian Robert McKown, who has been teaching seminars in the convention circuit over the past few years and has become known for his distinctive high-contrast painterly style on both skin and canvas. He also has a book on Light and Shadow available at our affiliated website, www.tattooeducation.com.
Painting A Rose From Reference In Oils is a beautifully produced DVD, loaded with great step-by-step tools and detailed background information. It shows the project from a variety of camera angles so you can really see it develop up close and follow the brush as paints are mixed on the palette. The project is shown over the course of close to two and a half hours, with every step described thoroughly. The DVD also includes a slideshow of Ian's work in a variety of different mediums. It's a great course, not only for new painters but also for those experienced in oils who are looking to expand their technique. We've got it now at our online store.
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
New Hyperspace Studios Video And Michele Wortman Card Set
Latest Ask Guy Column Now On Newsstands, Plus Gallery Update!
It's been a while since I've had a chance to update my galleries of paintings and tattoos... so you'll be happy to know that we've just added a variety of new pieces to both the New Tattoos and New Paintings galleries. Enjoy... and as always, you can check out my Instagram profile to see works in progress and other fun stuff.
There's also a new Ask Guy column on the newsstands in this month's Tattoo Magazine; this time the questioner wanted to know about the collaborative process, which I tried to go into in detail, including some progress shots of a piece I did with my sister Hannah. I've been privileged to be able to collaborate with many of the industry's most innovative artists, and it's a process that I can't recommend enough when it comes to learning, inspiration, and just plain old artistic fun. You can see the column in the Ask Guy archive at www.tattooeducation.com.
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
Guy Aitchison
Hot Off The Presses- Two New Guy Aitchison Prints
It's been a while since I've added new art prints to our catalog, so I'm excited to announce these two new medium-sized affordable giclee prints, based on two paintings that I completed for themed art shows over the past two months. Zero Hour is about my experience of time- there's just never enough of it for all the competing priorities and onrushing deadlines... but I had a lot of fun with it. And Perennial is about rebirth- a continuous process of gaining new strength and insight from the decaying mulch of the past.
I want to thank Miki Vialetto and Adrian Lee for inviting me to be in the shows that inspired these works. This is subject matter I can really relate to, and both were fun projects. I've got the signed, gloss-finish archival canvas prints available now at our online store.
Thanks, and I'll be in touch soon!
Finally Available: Guy Aitchison's Technique DVD
For a decade and a half now I've been perfecting my Reinventing The Tattoo curriculum, which teaches some of the fundamentals of artistic design in a way that can be applied toward making your tattoo work stronger, more dynamic, and more unique. It aims to balance understanding of artistic essentials with cutting-edge technical knowledge to give students a broad base of understanding toward being better artists across the board.
I'd like to announce the release of the latest installment in the Reinventing series, Technique. It's a four disk set that shows you closeup footage of the machine in action as I work through five different projects, presented in a concentrated format. The first two disks are a special edition cut of my Guy's Bag Of Tricks webinar, showing a project being done from start to finish as I answer a variety of questions from the audience. The other two disks, Tightening 1 and 2, go into detail about finishing techniques, showing four projects up close, with a voiceover describing every move in detail as I demonstrate line building, detailing, smoothing and other development.
This four disk set is about as technical as it gets. It's a natural follow-up from the material I teach in the original Reinventing The Tattoo book and DVD set, but is also made to serve as a stand-alone educational experience whether you've read the original book or not. It's intended for professional tattooists only, or apprentices working under the guidance of a professional. Available now at our online store!
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
The Latest Ask Guy Column: What About My Sore, Tired Back?
Over the course of 25 years of tattooing I've encountered my physical limits a few times; I've had my back lock up on me, along with some pretty frightening hand and wrist issues that I could only resolve through making lifestyle changes, which fortunately seems to have resolved the problem. This is an issue that many tattooists face at one point or another, sitting for long hours day after day across the years in less-than-ideal body positions... eventually it all catches up with you.
I've always believed that surgery and that kind of invasive therapy can often be avoided by being more conscious of how you work and by making the right changes where needed. I still work long hours sometimes but have found other ways of pacing myself, and hope to be tattooing still another 25 years from now. In this month's Ask Guy column, now available on newsstands in Tattoo Magazine #297, I go into some detail about workstation adjustments and stretches that are specific to relieving back pain, including a few illustrations. I hope you all find it helpful... and I invite you to submit your own toughest tattoo related questions at my Ask Guy contact link. You can read past editions of the column at the Tattoo Education Ask Guy archive.
I'd also like to remind you of my two upcoming seminars- Reinventing The Tattoo, which will be offered next week on April 8 and 9, and can be attended either via online, or in person here in southern Illinois. It's an immersive, intensive workshop meant to focus on the fundamentals of good tattoo design and the techniques for making it happen on skin. Then, on April 12, I'm having another seminar, Structure, at the Hell City Tattoo Fest. A combination ticket is available for anyone wanting to participate in both. The Reinventing workshop is limited to 30 tickets which are almost gone- you can purchase tickets and find more information in the Tattoo Education online store.
Thanks, and I'll be in touch soon!
Two Upcoming Seminars, Now Available As One Great Ticket!
After the great successes of the seminars we produced from Jeff Gogue's Off The Map location in Oregon, I'm excited about the two upcoming classes I'll be offering in the beginning of April. These are classes for professional tattooists only, or for apprentices of professionals, and go into great detail about both design and technique, a balance which I think is essential for doing top quality tattoo work.
On April 8 and 9 comes the first seminar, Reinventing The Tattoo, which is based on the long-format classes that I've given in the past; but this time I'll be offering it for both live and online participants. I'm offering a total of 30 tickets, since each student will have their work critiqued on the big screen, and will be given exercises that I'll be grading live as well. It's an immersive, interactive 2 day experience that gets right down to the artistic fundamentals important in good tattoo design, along with a lot of technical detail. I'll be answering questions from participants, both live and online- the webinar format can be just as rewarding as being there in person. Tickets are available at the Tattoo Education online store.
The weekend after that is the Hell City Tattoo Fest, where I'll be giving my other seminar, Structure, from 6-8pm on Saturday, April 12. Here I'll be focusing on ways to make your work stronger and more readable, both from across the room or across the decades. This is something that can be achieved in any style of work, including elements that are meant to be softer or lower contrast, and I'd like to share the things I've learned in the course of 25 years of experimentation. You can get tickets for this at our online store, or just drop by the Hyperspace Studios booth, where I'll be tattooing, signing my new prints and selling my new professionals-only DVD set.
For those looking to get the full spectrum experience I'm now offering a combination ticket where you'll get a $50 savings for enrolling in both classes, which cover different aspects of tattooing. I scheduled the Reinventing class to give artists time to travel to the convention, making it easier to attend both, whether it be live or online. You can find the combination ticket in our catalog as well.
Thanks, and I hope to see you there!
Coming in April: Reinventing The Tattoo Immersive Webinar!
For a decade and a half now I've been perfecting my Reinventing The Tattoo curriculum, which teaches some of the fundamentals of artistic design in a way that can be applied toward making your tattoo work stronger, more dynamic, and more unique. It's an educational program that has been attended by many artists who are now among the industry's top artists and educators. So I'm psyched to offer this first installment of Reinventing The Tattoo in interactive webinar format. That means that you can attend it online from anywhere in the world but still participate in the critiques, exercises and discussion. I'm offering a limit of 30 tickets so that everyone's work gets enough time on-screen, where I not only critique it but also use Photoshop to demonstrate ways of improving it. It can also be attended in person at a hotel near us in Marion, Illinois, but many webinar participants have found that the closeup, high definition experience they get on their computers is almost better than being there in person.
It starts on April 8, where I'll begin by going over the Reinventing fundamentals: Flow and fit, positive/negative relationships, contrast, priority and reserve, lines and edges, depth, and lighting effects. We follow that by doing an on-screen critique of each participant's work, applying the concepts that were demonstrated at the beginning of the day. At the end of the session I'll be handing out exercises for everyone to work on that night. Then, on April 9 we'll go over everyone's exercises so we can see how all the important fundamentals have been applied, and then follow up with a group of closeup video clips that demonstrate my latest understandings about technique. The Reinventing The Tattoo webinar is both immersive and interactive; wherever you live you can a part of this concentrated learning experience. Tickets are available now at the www.tattooeducation.com online store!
Coming up in April: Guy Aitchison Seminar at the Hell City Tattoo Fest!
With the tattoo art form spreading into every conceivable artistic style, it's important to take a step back every now and then and ask: What does this need to succeed as a tattoo? The question of longevity is the obvious issue, but the larger underlying importance of giving your work strength and clarity is not just about durability across time, but readability across the room.
In Guy Aitchison's new seminar, Structure, he demonstrates ways of strengthening your work, both in design and execution. It starts with a well balanced composition, with good flow and fit and strategic use of dark and light, which is then applied to skin using a variety of different ways, some which are shown in closeup video clips. Structure reflects Guy's most recent understandings of making your work strong and dynamic... if you're attending the Hell City Tattoo Fest this coming April 11-13, be sure to take advantage of this opportunity! It's happening in the prime slot on Saturday evening from 6-8pm in the Hell City Seminar Room. You can sign up at the Hyperspace Studios booth on the convention floor, or prepay at the Tattoo Education online store.
Posted from Tattoo Education
New Tattoo Coloring Book In Stock Now!
One of the big surprise hit items that we've carried in the past few years was The Coloring Book Project by Memento Publishing, which features line drawings by a wide variety of artists touching on a broad range of tattoo themes. it's a fun book, great for kids, apprentices and adults, and can be very inspiring for artists looking to develop their artistic styles. Now comes the second edition of the Coloring Book project, this time bigger and better with more pages and a lot of new artists featured. Both books are collections with work by an incredible variety of tattooists, some names you are familiar with and others you'll be encountering for the first time. We are also offering both books together at a package price... available now at our online store!
I'd also like to remind you all about the upcoming 3-day seminar marathon that Jeff Gogue and I will be holding at the Grant's Pass, Oregon Off The Map Tattoo location. These seminars can be attended in person at the shop, but for most of you the best option is to enjoy them via live webcast from the comfort of your home or studio where you can submit your questions via the chat feature. The first workshop on February 9 will be webcast free to the public from www.tattooNOWtv.com, and will feature Jeff and I doing a large collaborative sleeve project that will include both traditional Japanese elements and some more modern techniques and effects. This will be an unprecedented opportunity for you to sit in on a unique project.
The other two seminars are available to professional artists only. On Feb. 10 will be my class, Structure, where I'll be doing a large calf piece with both illustrative and abstract elements and a number of different effects, all with the emphasis on giving the piece strength and flow. Finally, on Feb. 11 Jeff will be tattooing my hand in a seminar called Size Doesn't Matter, which will give him a chance to demonstrate how he handles a complete project from start to finish. For obvious reasons, I'm pretty psyched about that one. Tickets are available now!
Thanks, and we hope to see you there!
Announcing the Aitchison / Gogue seminar intensive!
Last year's live webinar, Guy's Bag Of Tricks, had such a great response that I've been psyched to line up the 2014 online seminar schedule. The first one, coming up in less than a month, is particularly exciting for a number of reasons. I'll be visiting Grant's Pass, Oregon to do a brief guest spot at the Off The Map location there for three days of seminars with the legendary Jeff Gogue, featured last month in Hypercast 6: The Japanese-American Connection.
On February 9 is the first class, and it will be webcast live for free to the public at www.tattooNOWtv.com. This seminar won't be going into deep technical detail, as it will be available to the public, but will cover all kinds of other things pertaining to how Jeff and I design and execute large tattoo work. It'll be a collaborative project where we will be working together on a sleeve project that fuses traditional Japanese elements alongside cutting-edge techniques. We'll be taking audience questions, so mark that day in your calendar- it'll be a rare glimpse inside a high-energy creative process.
Then on February 10 I'll be giving a seminar, Structure, where I do a large calf piece that will include both abstract and representational elements and employ a whole range of techniques. This one will get quite nuts-and-bolts technical about all stages of the process, and I'll be taking audience questions as well.
Finally, on the 11th Jeff will be giving a seminar where he will be tattooing my hand. This project will be smaller but provides an opportunity for Jeff to demonstrate his magic on a small and personal scale. For obvious reasons I'm pretty psyched about this one but I think it will be an amazing learning opportunity for all of you as well. So tune in to the free webcast on February 9, and be sure to sign up in advance for webinar tickets for the 10th and 11th. There is also limited seating available for anyone wanting to attend the seminar in person at Off The Map Tattoo- be sure to get your tickets now at the Tattoo Education online store!
Thanks, and we hope to see you there!
Posted from Tattoo Education
TattooTelevision upgrade, and Sunday night movie screening!
We've been working hard over the winter to complete a bunch of video projects, and thought that a great way to kick off the New Year would be to upgrade our YouTube channel, TattooTelevision, with some new material, new channels and a freshly reorganized front page. We now have a channel just for our Hypercasts, another for Michele's Bodyset Portraits, and others for Educational Videos, Hyperspace Videos and Music Videos.
This includes two new uploads: Check out our latest, What Is Hyperspace Studios? It's a quick statement by Michele and I about what we do, and what inspires and motivates us. Also take a look at Goddess Bodyset, the latest Bodyset Portrait by Michele featuring her client Charity. We'll be uploading more new material over coming days, so stay tuned!
Also, coming tomorrow night via live webcast will be a long night of entertainment and fascinating discussion as Jeff Gogue screens his new film, Tattoo As I See It, starting at 8 pm Eastern time. This will be followed by a Skype interview session with Jeff- he's a great interview subject, as we discovered in our latest Hypercast, The Japanese-American Connection. After the interview, from 10-11:30pm Eastern time will be a variety of guests beaming in including Watson Atkinson, Deano Cook, Marisa Kakoulas and Tom Strom. Finally, starting at 11:30, will be a screening of our documentary film Innerstate, featuring 40 of your favorite tattoo artists working on fine art projects. This whole evening of webcasting is free- just tune in to www.tattooNOWtv.com tomorrow starting at 8 pm and enjoy. If you're working that night, play it for the whole shop!
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
New Ask Guy column, plus improved Hypercast page with new episodes!
We hope you all had a great New Year celebration. We had a great time rounding off the year with Hypercast Episode 7: Tattooing Past, Present and Future where we interviewed Tattoo Archive historian Chuck Eldridge, along with convention personality Chris Longo and upstart UK tattooer Bez. We'll be posting the edited version soon- but in the meantime we wanted to bring your attention to two previous episodes that we've posted recently.
There's the Collab show, featuring Litos, Don McDonald, Ty McEwen and my sister Hannah Aitchison, talking about collaborative projects in various mediums. Then there's the edit I just completed of The Japanese - American Connection with Jeff Gogue, discussing tattoo style and the interesting territory between Japanese and Western tattooing. Both episodes are filled with great visual material along with some compelling conversation about tattooing and fine art in the tattoo world.
Hypercasts are long-format interview shows, an hour or so per episode, allowing us to really get into depth with our interview subjects. We've just cleaned up the Hypercast page here at www.hyperspacestudios.com, putting all the completed episodes in easy reach. These are perfect for playing at the tattoo shop, intended for both artists and collectors.
I also wanted to mention that the latest Ask Guy column is now on the newsstands in the February 2014 issue of Tattoo Magazine. This month I answer two questions related to style and career, always interesting subjects. Pick up a copy, or you can take a look at the column in the Ask Guy archive at www.tattooeducation.com.
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
Great Gift Ideas from Hyperspace Studios!
Shoot It Right: A Photography Tutorial Just For Tattooers!
As long as I've been tattooing I've struggled to get good photos of my work. In some cases it takes a few attempts in different lighting conditions just to get something halfway decent, and once the client walks out the door you never know when you'll get another chance to re-shoot their piece. Even good photos usually fail to really convey the qualities of a well done tattoo. And these days many artists have all but given up, using just their phones to document even their most epic pieces.
I can tell you from experience that these low quality photos are a way of cheating yourself. In particular, often they are not good enough to submit to magazines or book projects. Taking that additional step to haul out a real camera and document a finished piece is always worth the extra few minutes. But even then, the pictures are often nt great, especially when shot at nighttime.
Finally, an experienced professional tattooer has produced a tutorial on getting good tattoo photos. Mario Rosena has a long history as a tattoo artist but has recently been working as a pro photographer as well, shooting for several publications including high-end fashion magazines and documenting events such as the X-Games. He brings all this knowledge together in Shoot It Right, a DVD and booklet combo that provides you with all the important information you need to finally get solid documentation of your work. Good photos help you to keep up in this competitive industry, and Shoot It Right presents you with the right tools to accomplish this. It's available now for a special rate at our online store!
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
New Book Available: The Antennae Of Inspiration
Hyperspace Studios Seeking an Apprentice!
Latest Hypercast with Russ Abbott now on Youtube, and new Ask Guy on newsstands!
Last week's Hypercast with Russ Abbott, Teresa Sharpe and Kelly Doty ended up being an epic conversation, stretching to close to two hours and covering a broad range of topics, including audience questions and some tattoo critiques. This time, just for fun Michele and I submitted works for critique as well. It goes to show that no matter how experienced you are there are many things that you can learn and improve.
This was our third Hypercast, where we are interviewing some of the industry's top talents and talking about the state of the tattoo art world, with this episode focusing on illustrative tattooing. Russ Abbott is one of the style's leading proponents and has released a number of top quality educational items, including Iron Clad: Built To Last, a DVD about technique, and Ornamental Archive, a reference book about flowing ornamental motifs that can be used in combination with other graphic elements in a tattoo. You can check out the edited version of Hypercast 3 at our YouTube channel, Tattoo Television.
I also wanted to mention that installment #6 of my Ask Guy column in Tattoo Magazine is now on the newsstands. This month I cover two topics: Acne scarring, which is something I have dealt with personally, and dealing with clients who seem to need too want changes in a design, a delicate situation to encounter as a tattooist. You can pick up a copy at the newsstands now, check it out at Tattoo Education, or send me your own questions at the Ask Guy link there.
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
Hypercast #3 Featuring Russ Abbott, Tonight!
October 27, 2013
Hypercast #3 Featuring Russ Abbott, Tonight!
So far Michele and I have hosted two Hypercasts, the first one featuring Durb Morrison of Hell City fame, the second one with legendary realist Nikko Hurtado. Tonight we interview Russ Abbott, known for his strong illustrative sensibility which combines a solid traditional foundation with more modern techniques and approaches. We'll be interviewing him about his new book, Ornamental Archive, and his upcoming DVD release. We'll also have special guests joining us including Theresa Sharpe, winner of last season's Best Ink, to join us in our discussion, in taking live questions from viewers, and in critiquing a few tattoos toward the end of the show.
Hypercasts are a long format interview show, focusing on topics related to fine art in the tattoo world. They are available for free through TattooNOWtv- all you need is a computer an a good web connection. We also archive all episodes- you can see both the Durb Morrison episode and the Nikko Hurtado episode at our YouTube channel, Tattoo Television. And if you are in the LA area, definitely take a look at the Nikko episode, where he discusses his current gallery show at the Copro Gallery.
Thanks, and we hope you can join us for tonight's Hypercast!Posted from Tattoo Education
Nikko Hurtado Webcast Tonight
October 16, 2013
Michele and I are excited about the results of our first Hypercast that we hosted two weeks ago, with guests Durb Morrison and Mike Cole. We interviewed them and discussed the crossover of fine art and tattooing, and how second mediums can enhance a tattooist's career. We then wrapped things up with a few audience questions and tattoo critiques. It's on archive permanently now for you to check out any time you want.
The second episode broadcasts tonight, Wednesday October 16. This week we are interviewing Nikko Hurtado, whose reputation has exploded lately as the public has discovered his almost unbelievable realism skills in both tattoo and oil paint. His Tattooing De Los Muertos DVD has been a bestseller at our store since its release. We've known Nikko since his very first paintings and have stood back in awe as he has embraced this classic medium and mastered it in just a few short years. He currently has a solo exhibition of new work showing at the Copro Nason gallery in Los Angeles. We'll be talking with him about galleries, painting, tattooing, the industry, and where realism is going next. You can tune in at TattooNOWtv tonight at 11:00pm Central time, or you can watch an archived cut of the show starting this Friday at our YouTube channel, Tattoo Television.
Speaking of YouTube, Michele has just completed another short client portrait video starring her client Sabrina, who has collected half sleeves and an upper backpiece from her. It's a great little video documenting Sabrina's journey from having a small flash tattoo to collecting larger work, lasering and covering the old piece, and then bringing it all together into a single unified look. Come check out the video, Woodland Window, at Tattoo Television.
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!Posted from Tattoo Education
Webcast Interview
October 4, 2013
Michele and I have been talking about doing a webcast interview show for a long time. We have such an amazing community of fellow artists and original thinkers around us, it has always felt like something that we needed to do. We've finally had our first episode, which some of you were able to catch this past Wednesday night at tattooNOWtv. It was a great show featuring an interview with Hell City's Durb Morrison, who has always put a high emphasis on the fine art aspect of tattooing, both in his studio and his convention, which is the best attended tattoo show in America. We also had special guest Mike Cole, who is not only an incredible tattooist but is doing a lot of mind-blowing paintings as well. Finally we wrapped up the show with some audience questions and tattoo critiques.
It was a great first episode, which you can check out now at our youtube channel. Stay tuned for our next episode on Wednesday, Oct.16 at 11pm Central time. Our guest will be world renowned realist Nikko Hurtado, and we'll be talking with him about the epic solo painting show that he's working on now. Tune in and submit your questions for Nikko, Michele or me through the tattooNOWtv chat. Or go ahead and submit tattoo photos now for critiquing on the air.
Also this week we have a new installment of my column, Ask Guy, in Tattoo Magazine. This issue focuses on various kinds of scars and how best to cover them with tattoos. Scarring can be a challenging obstacle for both clients and artists, but there are answers to these puzzles. Check out this month's article either at the newsstand or at guyaitchison.com, and don't be shy about submitting your own questions- you are the ones that make this column possible, after all.
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
Introducing Hypercast with Guy Aitchison and Michele Wortman
Join Guy and Michele at 11pm Central time every other Wednesday for Hypercast, a live webcast show featuring interviews, portfolio reviews and other subjects related to tattooing and the fine art coming from the tattoo community. Webcasting is being provided by TattooNOW through their online channel, www.tattoonowtv.com, where you can submit questions during the program via the tattooNOWtv chat.
Ask your questions in the chat room!
New Hyperspace Studios website!
Greetings, and welcome to the new Hyperspace Studios website! Multimedia artists Guy Aitchison and Michele Wortman have maintained hyperspacestudios.com since 1996, and it has gone through many changes and additions during that period. This time, the site has been rebuilt from scratch, featuring a streamlined interface that navigates easily so you can enjoy the wide variety of creative content that we have here.
Check out our brand new and updated galleries, featuring work in a variety of mediums by both Guy and Michele,
our archive of tattoo magazine articles and features going from present day back to 1989, with engaging interviews and photos that you won't find in any other galleries,
Our video vault, hosting short documentary and music video work produced by Michele and Guy,
Concise new interface for Reinventing The Tattoo owners to access the book's online features, including the newly updated member forums,
Plus the Hyperspace Studios online store, where we carry books and DVDs about tattooing and related art subjects, along with high-quality art prints, wearable items, and a bunch of other fun stuff.
This update has been long in the making, and we hope you enjoy navigating through the new site!
New website!
Greetings, and welcome to MicheleWortman.com. This is the first blog at my new site. Here you can take a look at paintings, bodyset and singular tattoos for women, and photography of subjects that inspire me, along with a collection of figurative sketches that I have done over the years. You can also listen to my music project Sunchannel and check out the music videos.
Recently I was featured in Inked Magazine discussing the distinct approach to tattooing that my work is known for, and colorful partnership with fellow artist Guy Aitchison, the other half of Hyperspace Studios. Here's a brief excerpt from the article:
INKED: Would you say your style is more feminine?
MICHELE: It's interesting you should say that because, originally, I had wanted a half sleeve of flowers and this girl looked at me, rolled her eyes and said, "You would get that. How typical of you." That bothered me, so I decided I would rebel against my "feminine nature" and get architecture, which is very masculine in my opinion, very man-made. The fact that I rebelled against my feminine nature in the beginning only to come back to it later was an interesting lesson for me...
(Read more)
I am currently taking new appointments for spring and summer, as well as painting commissions.
Stay tuned, join my mailing list, and check back regularly to see updates to the site and my latest blog.
Thanks and happy winter,
Michele Wortman
Photo by David TorrencePosted from Michele Wortman
Featured Article in Inked Magazine
December 7, 2012
Greetings from Hyperspace Studios and Tattoo Education!
Although Michele and I have been featured in quite a few magazines over the years, on only a few occasions have we shared articles. So we're excited to announce our new feature in the December issue of Inked magazine. Inked is a NY based publication that's done a bit differently than most of the familiar tattoo magazines, with a large emphasis on style and culture. This is the first time we've worked with them, although we're quite familiar with their writer, Marisa Kakoulas, who had a guest blog at Tattoo Education several months back. The issue is on the newsstands now, or you can check it out online.
We also want to remind you that we have a variety of unique gift packages available at Hyperspace Studios, and can help make your holiday shopping easier and keep it affordable. For starters, we have a number of great book packages, such as The Book Jamboree Gift Pack, which includes Organica, Moments Of Epiphany, Scratch Art, and both the Guy Aitchison and Michele Wortman art card sets. In addition, we have a variety of mixed packages with art books, wearable items and some fun stocking stuffers, like with the Guy Aitchison Gift Pack or the Michele Wortman Gift Pack, which include our art books along with shirts, cards, prints, and music.
Then, at Tattoo Education, we have high quality educational packages such as the Tattoo Education Combo Pack, which brings together Reinventing The Tattoo, our most comprehensive package featuring a 368 page book about all aspects of design and technique, plus a detailed DVD that is designed to integrate with the lessons in the book; in addition, this package features Standards Of Practice by Health Educators, the definitive DVD about cross contamination prevention.
We also have the Tattoo Community Project Pack, which includes Scratch Art, the Innerstate book and DVD, Pint Size Paintings, and the ArtFusion documentary. These items feature work by hundreds of tattoo artists at their most creative and energized, and are a reminder to all of us of what we can be capable of when we push ourselves past our comfort zones.
We've got a lot of other great stuff at both stores, both for artists and collectors, and we're offering these package deals to help you stretch your holiday dollar a little further. We're guaranteeing shipping in time for Christmas on all US orders placed by December 16.
Thanks, and we'll be in touch soon!
Guy Aitchison
Michele Wortman
The Paradise Artist Retreat
October 16, 2012
Pre-Order Guy Aitchison's Reinventing the Tattoo Second Edition now!Guy Aitchison is proud to announce, after over 3 years of work, you can pre-order the second edition of Reinventing The Tattoo. In this long-awaited second edition to his educational book, he has upgraded the format to a full-color, 368 page hardcover boxed edition, including a DVD with 40 detailed video clips that relate directly to material in the book. Rather than being a simple A-Z guide, Reinventing The Tattoo taps into Guys unique vision and his 20 years in the tattoo profession to provide an inside look into what it takes to improve your overall artistic ability and to put these skills to work on skin to get the results that you want. Although still following the same basic format as the first edition, the text has been trimmed down, cleaned up, expanded, illustrated and captioned to make for an educational experience unlike anything else available in the tattoo industry. Whether youre an experienced professional or an apprentice working in a supervised setting, this book and DVD can provide you with valuable new tools for improving your work. Reinventing The Tattoo is for professional tattooists only! $250 *PLEASE NOTE, THIS BOOK WILL NOT SHIP UNTIL 2/27/09* https://www.hyperspacestudios.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=249 Reserve your copy today!
Live visionary painting by Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Guy Aitchison, and Michele Wortman in Maimi this weekend!This year we've had the chance to be involved in a lot of great events and we're capping it off with one final live painting performance this December. On the 4th through the 7th of this month, CoSM, Moksha Family and Community Arts & Culture will be hosting The Visionary Art Of Alex Grey, in conjunction with the Art Basel festival in Miami. This event will begin on Thursday the 4th with a gallery opening, followed by a panel discussion featuring Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Guy Aitchison, Michele Wortman, Prof. Manolo Torres and Donna Torres. The talk will focus on entheogens, the visionary experience and the art that is inspired by this, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. On Friday the 5th, Alex and Allyson will be holding a benefit night for the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, which will feature Alex's famous visionary art presentation. Then on Saturday the 6th will be the main event, which will start at 7pm and go all night. This will be an evening of live painting performance by Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Guy Aitchison and Michele Wortman, along with a vibrant lineup of DJ's, live music performers and video artists. It promises to be a high-powered sensory experience. On all days of this event, the gallery is open for free. Guy and Michele plan on bringing some affordable originals and reproductions, perfect as gifts for your favorite tattoo fan. Tickets are required for the evening events, and pre-sale tickets are recommended. Click here for more information on ticket sales or other details about the weekend. You can also email the promoters at email@example.com or call them at (305)757-7727.
Win a FREE Tattoo from GUY AITCHISONGuy Aitchison has long been known for his stand-alone tattoo style and his innovative techniques. For several years now, the waiting list to get tattooed by this modern legend has been all but closed to anyone but his established regular clients. This Spring, Guy is having a raffle-style contest where the winner will get a free 4-hour tattoo from him, to be given at the Hell City Tattoo Festival in Columbus, Ohiothe weekend of May 16-18. That's a tattoo valued at $1000, but more importantly, a chance to get an appointment from one of the most inaccessible tattoo artists operating today. There will be a A second and third prize offered as well: second prize will be one of Guy's canvas art prints (retail value $200) and third prize will be a choice of either Guy's art book Organica or Michele Wortman's photography book Moments Of Epiphany (retail value $65). Winner will be selected randomly. Contest results will be announced at the Hyperspace Studios website on May 1. Only 1 entry allowed per person. In addition to the tattoo contest, Guy and his wife and partner Michele Wortman will be hosting a number of different events at the Hell City show, including some live painting performances and a book release party for a new tattoo community book project, Scratch Art. This convention will be one of the most exciting tattoo events all year, so be sure not to miss it! If you can't make it, though, the Scratch Art book will be available through Guy and Michele's website, www.hyperspacestudios.com, along with their groundbreaking art books, Organica and Moments of Epiphany, and Guy's bestselling educational volume, Reinventing The Tattoo. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter for announcements of any future book releases and other events that Guy and Michele are participating in.
Guy on LA Ink this Thursday!A couple months back, Guy and Michele made a trip out to Los Angeles, partly for a painting performance and partly so Guy could appear in a guest spot at Kat Von D's tattoo shop in Hollywood, for the purpose of filming an episode of TLC's hit TV show LA Ink. Guy's sister Hannah Aitchison has been a cast member of the show since its pilot last year, and has been impressing the viewers in TV land with her stunning figurative tattoo work. For the episode with Guy, brother and sister teamed up to do a large collaborative backpiece project, which they completed in one intensive visit. That same week, Guy also did a biomechanical 3/4 sleeve as well, also under imposing time limitations. We can't show you these pieces here because the show hasn't aired yet- but if you tune in to TLC this coming Thursday the 27th, you can check out these two epic projects.
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