Carp

Here is a little carp sketch, I love doing irezumi, drawing and tattooing it, traditional japanese tattooing and designs are just so powerful and just look like they're meant to be on the body, thank you for looking...

G.O.P.A

Today I received awesome news, I am now a resident artist at the Gallery of Progressive Arts in riverside ca., alongside some awesome graffiti artists and artists in other mediums. I'm so stoked on this achievement, big thanks to Louie Solano for this awesome news, I am currently prepping for my second solo exhibition and first solo show at the G.O.P.A, thanks for looking... Check out the gallery at www.gopagallery.com

KAPPA, TENGU, SQUID N SKULL

Here's a Lil sleeve I just had the pleasure of finishing on a cool redlands local, thanks again Marcus...

Meditation can help the creative process...

"Meditate, live purely, quietly, and do your work masterfully"

~Buddha

WHY MEDITATE?

The regular practice of meditation can help:

• Unlock artist block
• Create a flow of ideas for new paintings
• Clear the mind of junk
• Enable you to better focus on your craft.       

WHAT IS MEDITATION?

In simple terms, meditation is the self-directed practice for relaxing the body and calming the mind.  There are many different ways to meditate.  For me, its finding stillness in the mind by sitting quietly and ridding my mind of thought of anything other than where I am at that moment.  One way of stilling the mind is to focus on your breath, which keeps you in the present moment.

It's not easy, stilling the mind, especially for someone like me who is super-hyper, full of ideas, one right after another.

When learning to meditate, instructors will advise that "if a thought arises, gently acknowledge it and bring your mind back to your breath."  Good advice.  It's really taken me a lot of practice just to go a few minutes without a racing mind!  But each time I meditate, I get better and better at it. 

I bought a book from Nick Baxter recently, who also in his book talks about the benefits of meditation for the creative process. There have been countless times where I've had a "block" and meditation has helped break through.  This is just another of the many ways mindful meditation has helped me.

Negativity in tattooing and life in general...

I haven't been tattooing long enough to understand why tattooers feel the need to be angry or hateful toward each other. I have been tattooing long enough to have some of that hate directed at me, and I've had it affect my life outside of tattooing. I feel like I have a hard enough time dealing with difficult clients. So I have decided to try to ignore negativity and not try to involve myself in talking negatively about people. I have found this very difficult to do, especially when it's happening all around me. Meditation has helped me tremendously with this, since I have started mindful meditation I have been able to think a little more clearly. Now I'm no guru or lama, i can only keep my concentration for about 5 minutes so far, but I can only imagine the benefits of this if I could meditate for longer periods of time. I don't know what attracted me to this, I'm definately not a new age hippy or anything like that but I needed something and I found this. It is helping me manage stress, negativity, and negative people that come into my life, hopefully it only gets better.

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