The Girl With The Crafty Tattoos

I bit the bullet and I got my tattoo on Monday. As I mentioned last week I had a voucher for Bullman's Studio because I wanted Ulrich Hueber to do it, but it turns out that he is setting up his own place and doesn't work there anymore. He was really sound and slotted me in for a last minute appointment, which is better that I had less time to get nervous about it, considering what a wimp I am. As with my last tattoo I did lots of research on photos of the objects, drawing styles and tattoos of similar subjects. It turns out very few people get tattoos of pencil sharpeners!! I sent the below images on to Uli with a general description of the composition that I wanted and he came up with this beautiful design.

I'm so ecstatic with the result, the detail is above any beyond what I thought could be done in that space, it has millimeter marks and numbers on the ruler for feck sake!! Each time I look at it I'm convinced that the brush is my favourite bit, then I change to the pencil, and the pen...and so on. When it's all healed I'll get a proper photo of my two crafty tattoos together; the tools of my trade on my shoulders.

It took somewhere between and hour and a half and two hours, I'm happy that I didn't cry like a girl, but somewhere near the end I started to lose it a bit and I wanted to run away, but thankfully I held it together and didn't make an ass of myself. I have total respect for people who can do 6 hour sittings and get whole back pieces done. Either they are super human or they have no nerves. A friend of mine swears she really isn't bothered by getting tattooed, she can chat away easily and reads a book when she 'gets bored'. I'm obviously made of weaker stuff, but I love tattoos so I'm gonna keep getting them.

The images I gave to Uli as reference

I decided on the artist by doing a fair bit of research online. Facebook is really handy for that as most studios have tonnes of photos of previous work catagorised by artist. I had heard lots of good things about Uli but from the comfort of my own home I was able to look through hundreds of pictures and decide who's work suited what I wanted. There is no point in picking someone who is amazing at portraits if you want an abstract piece. Most artists specialise in an area and I looked for someone who did photo real object and had a strong level of drawing. Here are some examples of his previous work.

Uli has been working in Bullmans Studio for years but this week he is opening his own shop which will be called 'High on Ink'. I'm so impressed with myself that I figured out how to make a Google street view map preview that I'm posting the directions to his new place here. Ignore the fact that it says it's 39 Thomas St, it's not it's 31. It's on the top floor over Players and Dr.John's(my friend's new bar, which is pretty fantastic by the way!)

Uli is in the process of setting up his new website for the shop, I'll update this post with links as soon as the site is live.


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