Phew, a lot's gone on since my last post! I've intended for this blog to be pretty much an every day thing, and I'm still on that page. A few other things got in the way in the last couple of weeks.

I took Zeke to Oklahoma for a few days to spend time with my family before Kimmy has the baby. We had a really good time there. Zeke loved going to the Oklahoma State Fair, and we got some good pictures there. When I get them from my mom, I'll post them. Unfortunately, Oklahoma made me realize how much I miss it there and how much I miss spending time with my family. That state is so much more "my speed" than Florida so every time I leave to come back to Florida, I feel like I'm leaving home.

We're a few days away from the baby shower. Kimmy and I are basically making the final preparations for that. Kimmy's really excited and very pregnant, with less than a month until Abe makes his appearance.

Zeke also had his 4th birthday on the 25th. We had a small party for him at Chuckie Cheese's. Zeke's gifts are preparing him to be a true renaissance man; he got a guitar, a basketball and hoop, a baseball set-up, educational games, and an easel and art supplies.

As for everything else, things have finally calmed down to the point where I've been able to get my studio set up. In an effort to produce more work, I'm committing to producing a painting a day (about postcard-size) for the next 333 days. To get the ball rolling I'm selling a couple of paintings of equivalent size on ebay. My next couple posts will be about that.

I recently had a tattoo published in issue 7 of Tattoo Artist Magazine. It's a really big deal to me since I really like the magazine and respect their commitment to quality. If you've never seen this magazine, it's because it's sold only to tattooists. It's a trade journal, so it's only for professionals. Eventually they're coming out with a version of the magazine for the general public called "Tattoo Collector" which I'm sure will be superb as well.

Zeke

Just one of the coolest pictures of my son ever taken...

Portrait Tattoo

I did this portrait a few nights ago. I enjoy doing portraits, but they're not my focus, (most people come to me for color work) so I probably do one every few months or so. Memorial portraits especially tend to be pretty intense experiences. I feel very honored that people trust me to share in what they go through, as motivations for tattoos like this tend to be extremely personal. This portrait in particular, though, got me thinking about tattoo tv shows and the way that they focus on parading the story behind tattoos for a national audience. When it comes to memorial pieces, a part of me has always gotten rubbed the wrong way with them being on TV. The experience of doing this tattoo solidified it for me, I think. In a way, I can't help but think that making a public spectacle through television of the process of mourning and the resulting emotional healing inherently cheapens itself. I'm not asserting blame, I just identified why that bothers me when I catch it on tv, and thought I would share.

I partially desaturated this portrait to make the black and gray more viewable.

Work Evolves

I've done a lot of traveling this summer. The best thing about traveling to work as a tattooist is that one gets to experience entirely different ways of approaching even the simplest aspects of what we do. My travels have given me a new perspective, and as such has changed a lot of things about the way I tattoo. I've been focusing a lot more on my lighting, and spending a lot more time in the drawing and set-up process. All in all, once I start tattooing, I'm producing more solid, cleaner work in slightly more time than I was taking before. I'm happy with where my work's going, and I'm incredibly excited about every new tattoo I get to do.





This is a piece I drew at the beginning of the summer, but tattooed recently on my coworker Shack to fill in a space between his arm. This tattoo wasn't intentionally drawn for that purpose, it was just a happy accident.



I did this tattoo this last Sunday. I'm really pleased with it in its simplicity. I'm on a kick of not overdoing things, and trying to approach every piece in an elegant fashion. This tattoo is a good example of what I mean by that.

Baby Shower

Kimmy and I are expecting the birth of our second child, Abraham "Abe" Robert Bruehl in late October. We're having a baby shower on October 1st from 7-10 PM. We decided to scrap the standard baby shower and are essentially throwing a catered party at a coffee shop called "Cafe Bohemia" in their huge courtyard in St. Pete. It's very exciting. I designed the invitations. Above is a picture of the invitations, and below is the inside with the information. We sent out a downright ridiculous number of invites, so if we forgot anybody and you're reading this, don't think that we purposely didn't invite you. We're RSVPing by September 24th, so if anyone didn't get one, get in contact with me and I'll feel you in on the details.

We started an email address for the baby shower at kimmysbabyshower@gmail.com



Due to our whole experience being under the impression that we were having a girl and now finding out we're having a boy, we've gotten to change our entire baby registration at Target. Kimmy's still got some work to do completing the registration as well. Work comes from all directions, haha.

Score at Borders Last Night!

Last night I spent a few hours at Borders, much like I was in a library. I read some very interesting things, including two of the new books from disinformation and the third volume of a graphic novel compilation called "Flight"



I ended up buying two great books; one is a dover clip-art book called "2600 Typographic Ornaments and Designs" edited by Maggie Kate. It contains a ridiculous number of ornaments and design motifs. The other is the "Complete Encyclopedia of Signs & Symbols" which is a wealth of information on visual vocabulary and a great directory on symbols and their meanings. These are probably the best two reference books I've found in over a year and each is under $20.

My First Post

I figure that it's best to start out this blog with a post, before anything else. I intend to use this blog as a way to communicate with my friends, other artists, and clients. I find this method of communication fascinating... Hopefully I can unify all on-line diaries and communities I belong to towards this central blog. Hopefully I can keep up the commitment. Here's to the future.