6th April, 2007

We spent all day today working out designs for our full body henna tattoo. The living room has been converted into a make shift studio, our original studio being way to small to cope with the amount of photos, pics, books, scraps of paper etc etc. Not to mention the rolls of lining paper onto which our stand in model (my hubby) has lain patiently while we draw round every part of his body! Not that he looks remotely like our model, he just happens to be the same height and is the only available lifeform that looks remotely human and that will lie still for long enough to be useful!

Now huge chunks of said lining paper adorn the living room walls and Afshan and I have scribbled, blu tacked, sketched, stuck photos on, taken photos off, stood and admired, heavily criticised, and changed our minds so often that we are both feeling completely exhausted, yet still so excited by the idea of our first full body tattoo.

We have planned and plotted on our (very dodgy) model shape. All the key pieces have been placed and we have written on roughly what we want where. We are both so loathe to plan too much however, as the joy of completing any artwork is in the freedom to 'go off on one'. When we have a cone in our hand and a rough idea of what is required we love to just let our imaginations run riot and let the design evolve. The only thing we need to have set up before we can start is the knotwork. We are planning a sizable piece of celtic knotwork around her naval which has been inspired by a beautiful piece we saw in 'The Book of Kells'. Planning any kind of knotwork is hard enough, but coning freehand onto a live model is a bit beyond our capabilities, so tomorrow I need to find some pattern transfer paper (an item I thought pigheadedly I would never use!!) and plot our knotwork onto it.

 

7th April, 2007

Living with life sized tracings of your husbands body as living room wallpaper is not to be recommended. Especially when they are visible from the road. I am so excited about tomorrow. We found pattern transfer paper, traced the knotwork that Afshan and I created yesterday and this evening I will spend adorning a very patient hubby's back to make sure it works ok. Photographer confirmed timings for setting up his backdrops and lights. Confirmed time with  model, gosh it's soooo exciting!!!!!! Cant wait to get started.

 

11tth April, 2007

As you can all see IT'S DONE!!!!!!!! We had the craziest, most bonkers time ever! All of us, artists, model, photographer, just completely mental. Asif kept us in tea and lunch and dinner and catered for our every need, Ostara, our model was just a complete superstar!!! She had thought of every last detail, even down to false toe nails for the photos!!!! I didn't even know they existed! As always in any new undertaking we had completely underestimated the enormity of the task and ran out of time in the end. Afshan and I were both a little disappointed that we didn't get time to completely fill our model, but still, SHE LOOKS STUNNING!!!!! And are we feeling good now!!! Our feet haven't touched the floor since Sunday. Jason, our amazing photographer, had the discs ready for us by Easter Monday, double quick time, and we started uploading on Tuesday. Since then the phone and the e mails have just gone mental. We are hoping to have some posters of certain pics and maybe some birthday cards and prints available within the next month.

We are already planning our next major project, probably not a full body this time, more likely a whole back or shoulder, with every inch covered in henna. It's crazy, as soon as you finish one thing your mind starts ticking over to another thing. Thanks to everyone for their comments, calls, texts and e mails, we really appreciate it.

 

18th April, 2007

It was our son's birthday yesterday, he officially became a sullen, morose, greasy, grumpy, grunting member of the human race (or teenager if you prefer!!). That lifted our spirits somewhat after a miserable weekend spent sat bored out of our brains at Waterstones in a fair that although was full of really amazing stalls, with fabulous people manning them, was bereft of any public to exhibit to. It was such a shame, we had some great photos to show off and I was dying to bore everyone silly with tales of how we henna'd all day until we could henna no more, but it wasnt to be. We did meet some amazing people however, all well as the stallholders we met a wonderful couple who had popped in to see their wedding photos in the exhibition. They were involved in the Belly Dancing Community, in particular the 'darker' side of belly dancing, and they gave us some brilliant insight into a market we had never approached before. Many thanks to both of them, you know who you are, Bless you both!!! We will be updating our links with some of our fellow exhibitors shortly, check them out, they have some great stuff! We are also planning a Summer full of events, fairs and festivals. Check back here in a few weeks for Diary Dates. Meanwhile our Bridal Diary is filling up for May, June so again look out for new photos in our galleries.

 

18th May, 2007

Blimey! Been ages since I updated! We have been so busy getting our Henna Wagon ready for the Summer. We've also had beautiful brides to decorate and adorn for their special days. Our Bridal Gallery will be ready soon, just waiting for the pics to come in! I won't be updating for a while on here, we are just too busy! The festival season is on us and we are booked for virtually every weekend. We still have dates free for individual clients, brides etc so call us if you need us.