Getting structured

I try to drive myself forward.
I want to paint more, and tattoo more of the stuff I like.
In order to help customers understand what actually IS the stuff I like, I will attend to make paintings of it.
So I really need to get more productive...

But enough of blah blah, here are some pictures.
Enjoy!

A shop as good as new! (But better)

So here I am, working every day in the fresh, brand new, shiny working area of our tattoo studio.
We had already such an awesome time!
Johann Morel came over to tattoo for a week, (check the news on our official blog) and we started to paint like crazy. So new business cards are on the way, big drawings and cool tattoos are getting done...
Here are some pictures for your delight.
Cheers!

Time off

...What a great time.
Having the shop repaint means some time off, to think, paint, and try to work on all those other things I usually never have the time to do properly when I'm tattooing every day.
I did some painting.
I did some changes on my blog. (Well I just changed the color yet, but more will happen very soon)
I did a train trip:
I went to Lucerne to visit XXX tattoo studio, Rob Koss's shop.
I really recommend people to go visit Lucerne, because its a very lovely city, and xxx is one of the prettiest tattoo shops I've ever seen. Rob gave me such a warm welcome, I have spent a wonderful time there.
I hope I will be able to visit again soon.

Also, the shop is being improved really fast. After all we been through, the flood, being forced to stop working in the studio, all the mess and the broken stuff, we can finally focus on improving the place. Decoration. Framing. Furniture...
Oh, well. It's far from done yet, but I can tell it will be great!

...oh and got a new carver skateboard! Now I really want the weather to stop raining, and the road to dry because I really want to try it out!

Thanks for reading!

It's moving on!!!!!!

...yeah, that's right, it's time for some action!
Last week we packed for the Geneva tattoo convention, and my friend Frank and I moved the entire shop in the back of the studio to get the walls empty for paint.
That's right, we are finally getting over the flood of November!
The convention was great, it was fun to see so many happy faces saying hello at our booth!
I was very busy all weekend, so I didn't have much time to talk unfortunately.
On Sunday, I managed to finish a big chest tattoo on Estelle, and she kindly accepted to propose for the tattoo contest.
... And we won!!! 1rst place in color category, and 2nd place old school category!!!

I am really proud about this :)


Recently, I had a kick of inspiration so I started to paint. I've been painting several times a week, whenever I can, for the last 4 weeks... So I will also drop a few pictures of that here.

Finally, I was mentioning the shop... Well there is one picture I will show today, the horrific vision of all the decoration stashed in two small rooms!

I will repost soon, for more info about the renovations :)
See you soon and remember, we will reopen on Tuesday 12th of February!

What's next

Here is a little post to tell about what will be Add'ink tattoo's schedule for the beginning of next year!
We will be opened from Thursday 3rd of January following the regular opening hours.
From Tuesday 22nd, we should have our friend Mattias coming over for a little guest spot. If you want something nice, you can come over for appointment, as he still has availability.
Then on the weekend, (25,26,27th of January) there is the Geneva tattoo convention going on. We will have a booth there, so if you attend to it please come and say hi!

Right after the convention, from Monday 28th of January and until Tuesday 12th of February, the shop will have to close so we can repaint the walls. That's right, we have to close 2 more weeks!
It feels like a bummer, especially because right after the tattoo convention we usually have a lot of visits... But it's also great! New paint, new decoration, we might even make a reopening party!

... And then, from Tuesday 19 of February we have another guest, the talented mister Johann Morel working with us for a week!!! His book is already on the desk for checking out what awesome traditional he does. Again he can take a few more appointments, so if you want to get something nice you can come over and book him.


I leave you wishing a happy new year, with friends, love and rock'n'roll!!!

End Of the year news

Well the world is still here.
The shop is better now, as we managed to fix the floor and the ceiling.
The walls however, have much suffered from the flood. There are little cracks almost everywhere, so we will have to repaint everything!!!!
For that we will have to close for two entire weeks, right after the Geneva tattoo convention.
We also will be closed for the holidays, so here are the next official times Add'ink is closed:
From Monday 24th of december, reopening Thursday 3rd of January.
Fom Monday 28th of January, reopening Tuesday 12th of February.

Uh, what else... Some cool tattoos and projects, art, and lots of paperwork.

Happy holiday to you all!

Hard times

Well hello!
It's been a super hard month.
Remember my last post was on the 4th of November?
Well 3 days later, on the 7th (I think it was a Wednesday) we had a horrible surprise when we got to the shop on the morning.
Water was raining from the ceiling, and the ceiling fell on the floor. Water everywhere, police and firemen running in the building trying to find the leak...
It comes out our neighbor wanted to do some pluming installation upstairs from the shop, the guy she hired didn't check if the soldering he did was safe, and they both left the apartment for the night.
The shop had to be closed down 3 weeks in order to dry the walls and ceiling. We have to do some major reparations.
We had to change a part of the Granit on the floor. Tomorrow comes the guy to fix the ceiling. We will have to close the shop one week in January in order to paint all the walls.... That mater is still under discussion, because we can't just fix parts here and there, if we have to paint a whole wall the other ones must match the color!

So it took days to cancel all appointments, to assemble all the papers the insurances asked for, and its been quite stressful.
Tuesday 27th we reopened the shop, walls covered with plastic foam to avoid the mess... It will hold alright until the walls are painted new....
I am still a bit worried, since I don't know exactly how the insurances will cover the costs of it all...

But also, there is some positivity. 3 weeks off left me with some time to skate, and just before the accident happened I was chasing some transportation system for my tattoo equipment.
See, I notice every time I come back from a tattoo convention I carry a ton of stuff I didn't use, but brought over anyway, just in case I would need it... And I always have like 3 or 4 cases, all filled with stuff for my booth, and a ton of disposable like paper towels, plastic gobelets and whatever...
So the idea is or would be to shrink down all my gear to the essential, absolute necessity. I made some research on Internet about that, but ended mainly on discussion forums talking either about traveling with a tattoo case on a plane, good info even if i would avoid plane if possible;
or horrible "kitchen magician" websites telling you how to tattoo in your apartment, backyard, in your van or at your friends place, which is a path I am absolutely not willing to take!!!!
Yeah well, anyway I bought a nice case, and I'm all happy about it and now I'm really excited about packing my gear in it to go!!!
All I need is to decide where... Whoohoo! :)
Also, I made a new painting. I am happy about it. It's big so I am not sure to make prints of it, and if I do I will want to make special high quality on super thick paper, making every print as close of the original as possible. Enough of the cheap prints made down at the mall!
....thanks for the time you took reading all this.
I will give news soon hopefully
Sylvain.