The weekend just gone was the Brighton Tattoo Convention. In the past I have always just gone for a few hours for one day, but decided to make the most of it this year and go for both days.
On the Saturday I went up with a couple of friends and one of the first stalls I came to was the Jayne Doe stall and I saw that Simon Erl was doing walk ins from a flash sheet. I’d wanted to get tattooed by him for ages so it seemed like a perfect opportunity! I loved pretty much everything on the flash sheet, but decided to go for a lady holding a skull with a flower underneath. Sorry the photo isn’t the best in terms of lighting, but you get the idea:
I am so ridiculously pleased with it! I didn’t get tattooed 8until about 5pm, so after I booked it when I first got there, I went for a walk around and looked at some of the other stalls. I went and said hello to Valerie Vargas and she was tattooing a panther’s head on someone’s knee that looked amazing! I really want to get tattooed by her again soon, I just need to decide what to get done.
I met up with some friends I have made via Facebook as well, and it was really great to get to meet them properly and we got on really well which was great! I spent most of the day between friends and generally just hanging out and it was a really good day.
After my tattoo I popped back to the Frith Street stall because I rememvered that Valerie was selling original paintings so I picked one of those up and got given a free bag. Hooray! I then went upstairs to watch a friend get his hands tattooed by James Kiley then we all went into town for drinks and hangouts. I ended up getting the last train home and had had a brilliant day.
Here’s a couple of photos of some of the things I bought:
Tattoo Arsist magazine with a big feature on Chad Koeplinger, Swallows and Daggers issue 4, painting of a crow by my friend Christopher Newport but that’s actually from Sunday. More info on that later. Original painting by Valerie Vargas of a lady, Set of flash sheets by my good friend Elliot Guy and a Frith Street bag.
Here’s a closeup of the painting:
Sunday morning I woke up very sleepy and made my way back into Brighton with my boyfriend and met up with another friend at the station. We headed inside and it was really busy at first so we escaped onto the picnic benches outside until it calmed down a little. I’d spent most of my money already so we generally just looked around then at 3pm i met up with my friends and we did a painting swap. We put all our names in a hat and drew them and got to take home a painting each. Here’s all the entries:
Clockwise from the top left, Arienette Ashman, me, Thomas Davis, Christopher Newport, Alex Whiley. As you saw already, I got Chris’ painting! After the swap I was feeling super tired from such a busy weekend so I headed off home.
Overall I had the best time at the convention and I met some great people and can’t wait for the London one!
