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 to pay for our charter and discovered that although it was an internal flight, we still needed our passports… Which typicaly we’d left at Nicolas’s, we thought it’d be safer not to carry them round the rainforest if we didn’t have to LOL! So, in true Monty Python style, Simon, Nicolás and I got a cab back to his place and picked them up, span round and cabbed it back to the airport! Luckily, the nature of a charter dictates, that when 4 of the 5 passengers are delayed… so is the flight PHEW!

Anyway, we said our hellos and goodbyes to Sergio, he was on a later plane, so we’d catch up with him later. We headed out onto the tarmac, where we rounded a corner to see a teeny tiny plane - a 6 seater Cessna, (including the pilot!) I was getting really nervous/excited now as we were really about to head out into the rainforest itself. It all seemed so real and incredibly exciting… and hot! After another passport check at the plane by the airport guard/policeman? and his gorgeous German Shepherd we finally borded and were on our way.

We had an incredibly smooth flight all the way, I was expecting a lot more bumpiness, but it was really smooth - well, except for Alejandro! His chair hadn’t been bolted in right, so when the plane took off, he went shooting backwards, and it shot forwards on landing… confidence inspiring :) But he laughed it off… while filming, Si & he both had camcorders out for most of the trip… (promise to figure out how to put video clips on here when I get a chance)

Out of the city…

Over the mountains…

And cloud Forest

And then over the rainforest

And the rivers…

It was really beautifull, Alejandro and Nicolas pointed out all the rivers and the different regions until finally the ‘Broccolli’ below us began to look more like trees as we descended and made a really good landing on the strip in the centre of the town, with a few beeps of the horn to clear the way ;-)

As we turned round and tootled along to the Parking Place / Airport you could feel the heat and humidity enveloping you before we even got out of the plane.

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…

Finally we were ready to start work on Andy at around 8.30pm, the 10-15 mins it took us to set up was all he got for some dinner. Must stress that if you’re in the film industry and you’re looking for an extremely talented and passionate actor with the patience of a saint… then Andy’s your man, What a guy! He did mention 19hour make-up sessions (I’m thinking King Kong and LOTR) and he managed yet again to balance in some realy precarious positions, without smudging any artwork, whilst still working on his script for the next day. Simon & I had a great night, we brought loads more tattoo flash with us this time, as we knew more about the character, so Andy was able to choose all sorts of amazing tattoos for his character.

We went at it flat out until around midnight where we moved on to the fineline tattoos, and Simon managed to persuade us to stop at around 12.30 So that we could get most of the dried up Jagua Gel off before 2.30am… We managed to pack down, clean up and peel most of Andy’s tattoos off by around 1.30. And we left him once again, cold and tired in the early hours, this time he still had to peel off a few tattoos himself just before collapsing into bed for a few hours (by now he’s quite adept at the art of Peeling Jagua.) All in all it has been a great film to work on with Jagua, lots and lots of tattoos! Most of the tattoos will be seen in the openning sequence of the film (being shot somewhere in London today) and some of the tattoos will be visible throughout the film. But given the lack of sleep and the travelling I have to say that this was the best film that I’ve worked on. Its been great fun and really inspiring to work with someone who is commited to the point of delirious sleep deprivation and prepared to really suffer for his character (to say peeling jagua off hairy areas hurts is an understatement!).

And also, needless to say, as an avid Tolkein fan, and a huge fan of Peter Jackson’s films it was also really cool to meet Andy (Gollum/Smeagol in LOTR films) I managed to resist the urge to ask him to say “My Precious” (If you’re reading this Andy… sorry, I had to get it out of my system somewhere! LOL ;-) )

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? Could we come back for more tattoos? Well, as much as we were really tired, and the thought of another jaunt to London was tiring in itself, we decided that if Andy could do it, we would go for it aswell. Surely if there was anyone more tired than us at this point, it had to be Andy ;-) So we’ve arranged cover for work, and we’re heading home to get some sleep, before we do it all again tomorrow.

It was a really great afternoon… em evening… and night, well suffice it to say we arrived at 3.30pm on Mondy 4th Sept and we left at 12.30 am this morning. Andy is a really great guy, and has a huge amount of patience! Hats off to him seriously, he was a willing and patient canvas, he really thought about every tattoo that his character was having, down to its placement, style and the era it was tattooed in. We got a great insight into the film and by the time we left we also had quite a detailed knowledge of some of Andy’s lines LOL ;-). Not only was Andy being Jagua Tattooed by the two of us, trying to stay very still and getting pretty cold accordingly - he was also reading his script for the next morning. What a guy, just back off his holidays, straight into full body tattoos and having to rehearse his lines at the same time!

When we left Andy he had less than 6 hours before he was due on set, I really hope he’s getting some sleep right now. We had also hoped to be home and tucked up in bed by now… But as luck (bad luck that is) would have it, we are instead sat drinking yet more coffee in Watfor Gap service station, waiting for the next RAC man! Yep, we broke down at Northampton Services on the M1 at around 2am, thankfully we had just pulled in for take out coffees, so we had nice hot drinks while sat at the side of the M1 for nearly an hour! If you’re goinmg to breakdown, do it in style ;-). We were then towed upto the next services, where we’ve been since arond 3.15…. Its now about 4.15 and I’ve ran out of things to say… here we are drinking coffee and waiting for the RAC. You’ve got to laugh really, we are, sat here grinning insanely jittering from excessive coffee drinking, blogging on the Si’s laptop. Only a few hours and Andy’ll be on set, I hope his tattoos look as good as I think they should!

I forgot to ask when this film is due out, needless to say, until it comes out I can’t describe or post any photos of the tattoos that we did. But I will of course post some pictures from the film as soon as I can. I’ll find out when its coming out and post here again. All that remains to say is a big thanks to Andy and his Good Lady for putting up with us and feeding and watering us amongst the chaos of their first day home! I’m off now to play beannie with Si - never go anywhere without a deck of cards either ;-)

We were incredibly prepared, I had emailed font sizes back and forth with ‘The Hobbit’ (a.k.a. Keith the team manager) well in advance of the booking to make sure that we made transfers exactly the right size, to make the numbers spot on and even etc… So you can imagine our surprise when the Team Coach pointed out that the size we had was too small!!! That the size I had suggested would have been fine….HMMM GRRRR!!! So the fact that the error wasn’t our fault didn’t really do us any favours…. Michelle and I decided there was nothing to do except put our Henna Artists heads on and work like we all did in the OLDEN DAYS of contract artwork & freehand the numbers on. You could say there was a bit of pressure as we had to do the same numbers on both arms of each team member had to make sure they looked even and were a specific font & size.

Of course all’s well that ends well, and by 1.30 we had finished the team - we had a few smudges to take care of… but then again what can you expect with 14 grown men? ;-) The team were a great bunch and in high spirits, working on their team buliding visualising their medals!! So far they have won all their matches, so fingers crossed for the GB Mens team, I hope the Jagua Tattoos last the tournament, if not I guess the marker pens will be out again LOL

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 ;-)

Click here find out more about Underwater Hockey

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

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

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

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