Personalized henna

This past Saturday was Washburn's sadies was this weekend so I was hit up by a friend attending the dance for some sweet Poison Ivy inspired henna vines to go along with her dress! I started the arm with a rose on the ball of the shoulder. ♥‿♥

Side arm view - The vines are more branchlike at the top but they thin and become more curving and splayed as we go down the arm.

She had a slit on her dress near her upper thigh so we added a flower and additional vines there.

Finished off the look with a few floral nail accents. Totally dug this look and wish I had time to do the other arm similarly!

 (~￣▽￣)~ 

Overall I loved being there to do such a personalized request! Luckily this prominent style of mine fit the particular request, but I still liked having the obstacle of certain request and a time limit. Definitely would love to try more personalized larger pieces for a different style(s). I had about an hour or so to do this one in a coffee shop with her but with more time I would have loved to see where this could have gone: maybe less major skin breaks, added foliage/flowers and thicker vines might have brought a more intense, finished feel! Either way loved this and my client and hope to do something similar soon!

New Rose Sleeve I did on myself!

1/23/15

This summer when I went to New York with my mother to check out NYU, I bought a multitude of affordable mass-produced henna tubes at an Indian food market nearby to the Carlton Arms Graffiti Hotel (an amazing establishment, definitely deserves a google,) It's quite a plain building on the outside but on the inside it is filled with art from the bathroom's mosaic to the front desk, and especially the rooms!

The front desk at the Ye Olde Carlton Arms Hotel

The outside of the Carlton Arms

Every floor was differently themed, and every room themed according to the artist that did them! I stayed in this room: The Billi Kid room, it was a bunch of gritty graffiti photos stacked on top of each other, super bold colored and outlined pop art pieces thrown in with their overall grunge-street theme. This guy Billi Kid really had his style down! 

I attempted my first sleeve sitting in this room, trying to do something that shouted that I created this art, and it's big and bold and you can't look at anything else! 

I was inspired by my room to achieve something I had never done before, try to attempt a sleeve on myself. I added not many vines or dimensions to the project, I included banners labeled Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love, a mantra from one of my favorite movies: Moulin Rouge. 

I could tell that many other street artists had added their own little additions to the room in whatever free space was left. I decided to add my own flower in the closet because I didn't want to go over anyone else's work, or really have it seen by whoever owned the place. The Carlton Arms was moderately affordable for being located in Manhattan, I recommend it to anyone interested in seeing and staying a wonderful urban art feat and art landmark. Later that day I saw the broadway show Book of Mormon and discovered a cute affordable thrift store called AuH2O, meaning gold water, they took a picture of me and my purchases including my sleeve that day!

And now! (Drumroll please.....) My new and improved sleeve! (Click for a better view)

 This is as far as I got with the new sleeve I did! All roses, vines and leaves, I added a few more dimensional flowers then I did with the first sleeve I did. I researched different angles that roses are seen from - above and side views are all I got to that day.

 

One of the side view roses

This was the hardest area to do, I can't really see and work well on the back of my arm so I incorporate mirrors into the henna process to make reaching those areas possible. I got about mid-bicep height with the sleeve today - 1/23/15

Recent Henna design

Most recent henna's 1/15/15 - 1/22/15

I completed this arm piece about a week ago. On my own body, this is my favorite design. Flowers are the most beautiful natural creations to me, very delicate and flowing little life forms that have no personified features but they still can hold real emotion by simply being. Trees and scenery also fall into this category for me. I feel that if someday I did cover my body with actual tattoos - this would no doubt be the subject of my eternal markings. I also love the idea of finally having some actual color and blacking on my skin instead of this orangey-red color. Don't get me wrong, I love henna, especially because I am a redhead and my hair goes well with the orange unlike other hair colors/skin types. Black henna does exist but it's the equivalent of keeping black hair dye (in YOUR dead SKIN cells,) for the amount of time until it sloughs off! I never use black henna because of the health risks accompanied with using the product, I don't want a bubbling skin injury and an indent of the henna I got once in my life! This does happen very sparingly to the people that are allergic to the chemicals in the substance, and even natural henna has health risks for people allergic to citrus fruits. 

So I stick to the orange for now! 

In the last few days however I tried to start my whole left arm and continue marking all up the arm with just roses/vines/leaves:

I plan to try to finish my arm later tonight and then try the other one because of my past feats doing my opposite hand.