larch needles newsletter 2/7
prologue
it's been a while! turns out, once you lose a habit, it can be hard to get it back. from now on i'll be sending out this newsletter monthly rather than biweekly. in spite of omicron, january turned out to be a great month, and i had the privilege of working with some wonderful folks to create some of my favorite pieces. after a very mild december, we finally got a real taste of winter here, and the river began to freeze in dramatic fashion. i've often heard stories of how, a century or so ago, the river used to freeze so smooth and flat that people could skate from beacon to newburgh, and would race in sail-powered ice boats. back then, winters were colder, and it was also before icebreakers were deployed to keep the shipping channel open at all times. such ice seems like a distant fantasy now. though it may be less recreationally useful, i am enamored with the rugged, erratic ice formed as the river freezes slowly, crystallizing and tearing apart over and over, crashing against the shore. the landscapes formed in the rubble are endless and fractal, enchanting and intimidating.
recent work
1/10, mycelium
one of my favorite custom pieces i've done, and i'm so glad it ended up in such a kickass placement. i can't believe it took me so long to do something based on mycelium, considering my deep fascination with fungi. i'm looking forward to exploring this style further in flash and freehand.
1/12, cellular web
a freehand exploration of a pattern i've been working with for a long time. the more i work with this pattern, the more depth i discover.
1/19, witch hazel
i don't typically do botanical or floral pieces, but witch hazel is one of my favorite flowering plants and it felt like a really good fit for my style. really happy with how this came out!
1/19, dendrite
blastovers get me really excited. layering tattoos can open some really interesting possibilities. this particular piece was made from a drawing done just over two years ago, which easily makes this the widest gap i've had between time of drawing and time of tattooing. in spite of its age (most drawings from around the same time i've lost interest in and taken down by now) this design is one of my favorites, and i like it more than a lot of subsequent root-inspired designs. iterating on an idea usually leads to improvement, but on the other hand, sometimes you nail something the first time in a way that's difficult to replicate. i often find myself turning to very early versions of a concept when i find myself drifting away from what initially caught my interest.
1/22, emanation
here it is, my biggest piece to date! three sessions felt like quite a journey, and i can see the subtle ways in which my technique developed over the course of this piece, which i find really fascinating. it's so cool to be able to create tattoos that are on a totally different scale from what i would normally create on paper. i hope to do many more longform projects like this in the future!
1/23, plume
the "spirit flow" has become an oft-revisited concept, and despite its simplicity i continue to learn more about it. i really like how it looks when its a bit more spread out, with each droplet having some room to breathe.
1/25, root circuit
what a killer placement! (double entendre very much intended) connective and interstitial spaces on the body are some of the most interesting to me. this piece also happens to be right next to some very early work by Noel'le Longhaul, one of the first tattooers i ever looked up to.
1/30, triangle weave
geometric stuff like this is definitely more of a digression than something i want to delve deeper into, but i really like how the muscle contours informed the shape of this one.
1/31, cairn / comet / chimera
one of my favorite parts of tattooing is when clients spark ideas i may never have had otherwise. i'm not sure i would have thought to combine these two concepts (the cairn and the turbulence pattern) but they work so well together. this was also my first time freehanding this texture, and it felt much more natural and much less difficult than i expected it to. looking forward to doing more synthesis of concepts in the future.
studio updates
a couple weeks ago, i bid farewell to my studiomate Moth, who is now working out of their own space up in chatham, ny. this means i have room for an additional station in my studio, and i'm trying to host a few guest artists in the coming months. the first confirmed guest spot will be a visit from Liev aka @trinketkeeper, all the way from portland, or! i've admired their work for almost as long as i've been tattooing, and i'm so thrilled to be meeting them soon.
booking
february: things have been very slow, and february is still very open!
march: as of today, i'll also be accepting booking requests for march.
epilogue
thank you so much for reading! if you’d like to book an appointment, you can begin by submitting a booking form here (and read the info here if you haven’t already). until next time!
-eva