A slow crawl through chaos to find order.

Creating art is something that I have found to be a necessary way to feel at peace and ease with myself and my surroundings, creating art and ornamental decoration for the human body is a complete privilege and a total honor. It is something I constantly marvel at, it feels magical and is a totally surreal occupation for both the artist and canvas. Ted has been coming to get tattooed by me since 2012, we started at Saved tattoo in Brooklyn and continued in Austin Texas, at Rock of Ages, he is one of only a few customers who only get tattooed by me, a stoic and kind man who has constantly followed through, completing each stage of his body suit with a keen integrity. His level of commitment traveling from Port Perry in Canada to get tattooed is nothing short of incredible. As we round the corner to the final stages with only one session left on his legs and his sleeves to start and complete, I wanted to take a moment to thank him and share some images of our last two sessions that we just finished up this week whilst I was guesting at Saved Tattoo.

Thank you Ted for sticking with it on this journey, I really can’t put into words how grateful I am.

The Honor of Commitment

@michaelwaters_atx started his lower legs today so I got some photos of his healed back and thighs, very proud of this one and humbled by Michaels commitment and trust he’s given me with his back. If you are looking to get work by me I am currently giving preference to customers looking for large work, full backs and fronts. I know this is a huge commitment in time and money and I truly appreciate the kind of undertaking that this is, thank you everyone that enquires about getting tattooed I wish I could accommodate everyone.

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Paradox of Communication

I realize haven’t posted any new tattoos on here for awhile, in part due to laziness and also because of the ease of posting on Instagram. As the algorithms change in social media I am left with the problem of how to communicate what I do and what I have to offer to people who are interested in my work…….

How would you like to see my work?

That is the main question that keeps presenting itself. As I grapple with this obstacle I thought it might be nice to post some recent tattoos on here, maybe some of you have seen them, or maybe my feed doesn’t come up for you to see it and maybe some of you are not on social media, either way enjoy and as always an endless thank you for your continued support and interest in what I do.

First up is hunters recently completed sleeve…..

I really enjoyed this one, mixed some very old Polynesian influences against some of my more current geometric simple shapes and more complex dotwork mandalas.

Next up is Michael Waters finished and healed back piece, this I really enjoyed as we got to do some color mixed in with pattern work, a horse, wolf and a giant ornate human skull. This took a few years to compete as we finished the skull and took a break, thank you for your trust and patience Michael, it is immense!

April has been a good month for finishing projects! Here’s is Allen’s leg all finished up, really excited with how this one came together, I’ll let the pictures do the talking, thank you Allen.

Really happy with how Marks piece turned out below, a very non literal interpretation of a volcano. I love how this one sits on the arm by itself and has such a strong simple overall shape.

Below are some images of Kian’s sleeve, Really loved doing this one, the mix of Persian and Arabic ornament was a lot of fun and really interesting to research the beautiful historic art.

And the last images for this post are of Alana’s torso, I got to add to a really incredible collection of work, tattoos by Scott Sylvia, Jeff Rassier and Tim Lehi to name a few. Thank you for your trust Alana and patience to see this one through to the end.

Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my work and read through this post – Thomas.

Turning of the wheels.

Been a busy few weeks, lots of new work and painting a lot of new stuff for some upcoming exhibitions and projects, more on that later this week.

Here are some highlights from the past few weeks, thanks!!

And these last two images are from the top window section of my Mandrake Hotel installation.

Thank you – Thomas.

Book of Patterns II

Over the past year I have been compiling a new collection of hexahedron based patterns for my tattooing and art.

The end result was 1600 patterns, I felt that this collection was something I wanted to share with people who like my work, so I edited it down to 694 of the strongest ones. The result being a 694 page, 5×8 book of patterns, weighing in at 2.5 lbs / 1.2 kg.

I am really happy with how the book turned out as I hope some of you will also be, I did all the preproduction from the patterns to the design and layout of the entire book.

The first 200 books purchased include two 8″ (h) x 5″ (w)  letterpress prints of patterns based on the front and back cover.

Follow this link to see more http://rakinglightprojects.com/products/book-of-patterns-volume-ii  – and yes it ships worldwide.

Here is a little trailer I made for the Book, some sample patterns and pictures of the book itself.

Thankyou

Thomas.