Aileen.Marron

Jagua face done at Glastonbury 2007.

Headed out to Nicolas’s house this morning to meet up to go to the airport for our flight into the rainforest. We met up with Sergio (from the NGO) and Alejandro (filming for us) at the airport, we went Read the rest of this entry »

Incredibly, after being awake and travelling for so long… we still woke up at 5am local time! I guess our body clocks are still on UK time, so it seemed more like 10am. So while we waited for Nicolás to come and pick us up, we had some breakfast & decided to do some jagua LOL. Anyway Nicolás and Clareta picked us up and we went out for a lovely lunch where we discussed our travel plans into the rainforest and our itinary for our time there. Nicolas was as tired as us, having landed even later than we did last night, so we enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing with Nicolas, Carleta and some friends… and surprise surprise.. I did some jagua tattoos ;-)

WOW! What an amazing flight we just had, I wish we had the camera out, the sky was amazing. There were columns of clouds like a 3d landscape that we were flying through at sunset, with the most amazing colours all around, it was like being inside a Michel Angelo painting! Wish we had managed to get a picture!!! We took this as a good sign, that our journey would be favourable, and beautiful :)

Alvaro kindly picked us up and took us to our hotel. We flew upstairs for well needed showers and a change of clothes before going out for a meal with Alvaro. Even though we really needed some sleep, and we had seen a bed…! We were really excited to be here at last, since first planning this trip back in Spring. So we went out to eat and get aquainted with Alvaro, had some deliscious local food, in a beautiful open air resaurant, which made a lovely change coming from a cold UK autumn in Manchester! Well, off to bed now for some well needed sleep…

Well we’ve just done a longhaul flight…. Swollen ankles et all. Still had no more sleep and to top it off, we have missed our connection due to the delays in Paris (from the queueing up for shoe xrays!) So here I am in the airport blogging via email via my phone, hoping it’ll get through to my site. Planning to blog from everywhere and then add the piccies when I get home. Hope we get some good pictures! Just managed to get hold of Alvaro who was wondering why we didn’t get off our scheduled flight, he sounded releived that we were ok just delayed. Poor guy, now has to wait even longer for us :( Anyway, we’ve discovered its pretty hard to get a cup of coffee in the departures part of this airport, so I’m dabbling with a can of Coke (memories of being hooked on Coca-Cola flashing up!) but, really need the caffeine and sugar right now! Simons happythough, there is a smoking lounge :), poor Si, he hasn’t had a cigarette in nearly 24 hours :(

Considering we’d only had around 2hrs sleep we were wideawake on the way to the airport! Our flight was due out at 6am, so we made it to Ringway (that’s Manchester Airport for none-locals) by 4am. Naively we thought we’d have time in the airport for those last minute essentials like…. an English/Spanish phrase book LOL. But ofcourse, with all the crazy security measures in place these days we only just made it to the plane on time. The first flight toook us to Paris where we changed planes, again a huge queue and then running all the way for our connection with our shoes in one hand and our permitted ‘tiny bags’ in the other – sheer madness with the whole shoe X-ray malarky LOL. One flight down… 3 to go…

Well it really was like Deja Vu! Only this time we had the long journey on the way down, tonnes of traffic meant a 7 hour car journey (hire car btw, Si’s car’s in the garage and my car might not make it there and back – its an old FIAT punto… (FIAT =Fix It AgainTomorrow LOL) Anyway, because of the nature of Jagua it was really great to see Andy again a few days after we did the tattoos – we left him with pale greyish artwork early hours of Tuesday morning, and seeing him on set in character with some of the tattoos on display was great, it made it all worthwhile! There was a great buz on the set, Read the rest of this entry »

We have just about recovered from our 24hour stint down to London and back for Andy’s tattoos. We went straight into work yesterday, after being dropped off by the RAC man at around 8.30am. After doing all the absolutely essential work, we crawled home and collapsed in bed by around 3.30pm! We slept right through to this morning (Wednesday), save a midnight episode of Lost that we woke up for… very twighlight zone ;-) Anyway, I’ve found out that the film comes out in March, so make sure you go and see it! If you don’t come back here to see some of the tattoo stills from the film.

Anyway, feeling human again, we are working late tonight, we were just geting ready to go home. I was actually emailing back and forth with Riffat when my mobile rang… it was Mary Anne (make-up artist from the film) …Were we busy tomorrow? Read the rest of this entry »

What an eventful day! This jagua tattoo booking was only confirmed properly on Friday (1st) so I just had some time on Sunday to prep some of the artwork in advance. So this morning, (well yesterday morning actually as its now just gone 4am Tuesday 5th Sept.) Simon & I travelled down to London ready to start working on Andy Serkis. We had prepared artwork for the main tattoos, and apart from that we went prepared with books of tattoo photos as well as the life saving laptop and internet datacard. We didn’t actually know anything about the plot of the film, or the time and place it is set in… So its always better to be prepared, having worked on a few films over the years, I always like to have everything I need to be able to do whatever is needed at the drop of a hat.

It was a really great afternoon… em evening… and night, Read the rest of this entry »

My first combined 1 day intensive workshop! As I usually teach henna & jagua as two separate days, I was a little worried about doing a one day workshop for both… But it worked out fine, both my candidates (Cat & Liesl) were on the same learning curve and it was a very smooth run. We were all very tired by the end of the day, but the excitement fator really helped us pull through! As soon as I get some photos together I’ll post them here.

We took the scenic route to Sheffield over the snake pass, and after circling the Ponds Forge Intl. Sports Centre a few times we finally made it into the foyer at exactly 10.30. There was an amazing atmosphere with over 60 teams competing, there was drumming and singing from the South Africans, there were the Columbians with their pan pipes, and the GB team with their Jagua Artists… It was like a fezzie in a sports centre LOL! Read the rest of this entry »

October 2006 – Mendhi Mela.

The Mendhi Mela is an event dedicated to the artform and application of Henna Body Art (a.k.a. Mendhi) The event is organised by Riffat & Cat Hinton; two of the UKs most well respected and creative henna artists.

I have been invited to be a guest speaker at this years Mendhi Mela. I will be talking about jagua body art, its history and traditions and its place in todays expanding world of western temporary body art. I will ofcourse also be sharing tips and tricks of jagua application as well as joining in with the day’s henna practical sessions and fun!

If you haven’t booked a place at this years Mehndi Mela yet,
Then book it here right now! It looks like its going to be areally fun event.

Of course I’ll report back on this event with a write up and photos ;-)

August 2006 – Booking for the GB Mens Water Hockey Team

First Jagua Promotional Contract Artwork Booking! Will report back with piccies again, looking forwards to this one, as the booking is jagua specific for underwater visibility. We (Michelle & I) will be jaguaing (?) the whole team and the coaches, and some of the under 19 teams aswell!

Click here find out more about Underwater Hockey

20th – 23rd July 2006 – Trowbridge Festival

Super Succesfull and a great time was had by all. This year we had the pleasure of Liz & Mandy’s company & incredible artwork skills, great help, thanks! We were also blessed with good sunny weather, though a few mini showers kept us on our toes.

The new Jagua Tattoos went down really well, and henna stood its ground alongside it. I posted more piccies here on The Forum

July 2006 – My First ‘Jagua’ Festival

As there was no Glastonbury Festival this year (roll on Solstice 2007!) my first festival is of course Trowbridge. This is of course my other ‘fave’ festival – set up in the amazing vintage year on 1974, which just happens to be the year that both Simon & I were borne! Looking forwards to working with Jagua at the festival, will let you know how it goes…

Take a look for next year Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

June 2006 – A New Forum For Jagua and Henna Body Art Chatter

Take a peek at JaguaForum.Com register if you like or post as a guest.

May 1st 2006 – New Jagua Tattoo Products Are Launched

Finally, the cat is out of the bag! PHEW… I can now offer this amazing product in my range of contract artwork services and introduce my new training course. HOORAY :-)

For indepth information about jagua tattoo products and the traditional uses of jagua please see The Jagua Page