the free life

Hey there, whoever reads this!

I have spent since March living in the van, travelling and guesting, initially I had only planned for a year of that but I’ve been loving it so much I think I’m going to do at least another year, if not longer. I wish I had done this years ago, and couldn’t recommend it to anyone else highly enough!

I have just updated my travel page to reflect some changes, and will be sorting out next years sechedule over Christmas!

I am hoping to split next year between tattooing, doing an intensive Bushcraft and survival course, and hopefully testing my new skills in Chainsaw and forest planting as well! I will be tattooing at least two weeks a month so will have plenty of space! If you have a request for me to come visit your area let me know and I’ll try and arrange a guest spot near you!

I will also be doing regular spots in Bristol, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Cornwall and Wales but also hope to make it up to Scotland for a while too if I can!

Anyone who wishes to keep up with my adventures, I made an instagram for vanlife @hanbearvanbear

Hannah x

Whispering no more

Hey all you lovely folk, hope you are doing well! Thought I’d update as everyone is v curious to see what’s going on! The short version is that unfortunately due to a variety of factors it became apparent very late last year that I could no longer afford to run Whispering Weeds and had to shut up shop. Bit of a downer, but when life gives you lemons, throw a lemon party! I decided to use this opportunity to do what I haven’t been able to do for a while and travel, guest spot and visit people for the rest of this year.

I’m currently in the process of moving house into a campervan so if any of you have emailed in the last few weeks that’s why I havent been replying! I will be travelling round the UK this year, including many guest spots in Bristol and the South west! To see if I will be coming near you please go look at my TRAVEL PAGE!

If you see a guest spot that is near you email me with the location as the header and you will get a reply asap!

Sorry to all of you who got moved, will be getting in contact to reschedule everyone now that I’ve got the majority of my life stuff shifted! I will not be leaving anyone with unfinished tattoos, so don’t fret! I just need a bit more time this year to smell the sweet roses of life and get out of city living/slog mode.

Oh also,Whispering Weeds is now Tengu Tattoo! Go check it out 🙂

love and thanks to you all

Hanbear

x

Art, tattoos and holiday blues

Hey everyone! I just got back off a much needed holiday so thought i’d post a couple of things as I realised I dont think I ever uploaded these to the website!

I made a couple of very high quality art prints once lockdown was over and put them on my Bigcartel!

I made this first one as a loving tribute to my mum, she and I love these cute puffy lads. We call them Timothy’s and enjoy their pink shirts. They are for sale at the studio and on my bigcartel.

mourning dove= Timothy

I also made this sockeye salmon print as a tribute to CANADA in general after my trip there. Wanna go back reallly bad!

journey home frought with perilous bears

the third is a print that is not a ridiculous quality of print but it does make it a lot more affordable, if, like the rest of the country you too are not feeling as flush as our “government” seem to be. Foxy lady in tribute to my new home, which is overrun by little ginger friends. Loving the wildlife in this corner of Bristol. I’ve seen Jays AND a badger too amongst all the usual suspects 😀

golden hour fox

Also I made a snail fantasy for me and Bry’s charity day! All profits go to st Mungos of Bristol. A fantastic charity that has done no end of good, if you hate snails we would love it if you would consider them as a worthy charity for the next time you mae a donation to anything. You can still catch some of the photos from the charity day on Bryoni’s Insta!

snail FANTASY

I’d also love to do more snail/banana slug tattoos! Anyway- all of these will be available on my bigcartel until I replace them in a couple of months!

thanks for looking everyone! I’m going to try to update my tattoo portfolio on here as I haven’t done it in a while but in the meantime have a look on my instagram!

H xx

Back into the groove

So after 3 years of absolute butts the studio is finally going how it should!

Bryoni and I are having a fantastic time at Whispering Weeds and it’s back to being the slice of tattoo heaven it always should have been!

I am back totally on top of designing and emails so will be opening my books on MAY 17th for September-December dates! New work welcomed and encouraged! I’m a little proud of myself for getting through the events of the last couple of years and also having finally cleared my backlog. I’ll be so jazzed to see all your new requests!!

Oh we also have an amazing aesthetics practicioner joining us, in the beautiful Lunar Aesthetics Bristol. Go check our their Instagram if you havent already!

thankyou

Hannah x

Prints fah sale

Hey everyone! I managed to do a really exciting thing and made a bigcartel shop

IT CAN BE FOUND HERE

I am selling all my cat prints, and to get around bigcartel fees I have uploaded a bunch of smaller photos. I’ll post bigger versions here now so you can inspect them properly!

If you would like to buy some but pay with paypal email me with the prints you want hannahcalavera@hotmail.co.uk and I can sort it out that way too! Also all prints will be available at the studio in Bristol if you’d rather see and buy them IRL

I also have this A3 leggy boi print for sale

And this tiger

and these two as well!

Anyway! I hope your lockdowns aren’t going too badly. I hope we will be allowed to work again soon but I’m not holding out! Therefore everyone who was rescheduled will only be rebooked once we get a definite date to go back to work!

Hannah x

Lockdown 2 Electric Boogaloo

Hey everyone, so with second lockdown announced and everything I thought I would make a BigCartel page to try and make a bit of money while Boris and co tell us that we can’t work! Personally I think its pretty gross that for people who are not at risk, choosing to visit a close to sterile tattoo studio is not allowed. Food for thought.

ANYWAY

Here is my BIG CARTEL! Cat wizard prints are up in time for christmas so please, if like me you are sacking off the high st and Amazon to support local businesses, take a look!

FOR THOSE BOOKED IN NOVEMBER 5th-end of lockdown

Your appointment is automatically postponed! I have written down all your names and numbers and as soon as Boris announces Tattoo studios can open I will be phoning everyone in blocks of 10 to get everyone rebooked in in order. There’s probably 2 things to keep in mind here

1) if the last lockdown is anything to go by, tattoo shops will probably not be in the first wave of businesses allowed to resume working. Last time hairdressers, pubs AND gyms were all allowed to reopen before tattoo studios. Which I think, is not only unfair but really dumb. So if you are booked in in December, try not to be too disappointed if you have to settle for getting your tattoo in the new year!

2) I am currently booked up till February, so anyone getting postponed may well have to get tattooed Feb/March time. I’m really sorry but it is a lot of work to get that amount of people rebooked anyway without having to rearrange all the people who didnt have to get postponed. Again it’s not that fair but sadly thats how this year is goin!

Last thing I promise- This winter ALL our mental health is going to be fucked- mine included. Pick up some nice hobbies, take vitamin d, meditate/listen to nice music, eat well, get out and do some nature walking, talk to people about how you are. Please please reach out if you are feeling hopeless, and remember that other people are going to be struggling too so be kind. You never know what someone has been through before you talk to them.

Thankyou all for reading, I love you. Stay safe but more importantly stay sane <3

COVID

Hey guys, what a year so far eh? SO I finally got round to updating my website instead of sitting on my bum watching cookery shows and eating crisps. We’ve been down the studio like eager beavers making it all plagueproof and lovely! Here is all the information you’ll need to get tattooed during these crazy times at Whispering Weeds!

COVID MEASURES


Obviously things have changed a little because of corona, but getting tattooed will still probably be quite similar. These are the things which are different now
• I’m sorry but you will not be able to bring friends or family to appointments anymore, we have to limit footfall in the studio at this time. Don’t worry we are very friendly!
• Please come to your appointment on time, not early as there is nowhere to wait now!
• You will have to bring your own mask to the appointment
• At the door please use the hand sanitiser provided before you come in
• Please bring lunch with you as we would like to limit the ins and outs at the studio! I am sorry but you won’t be able to eat inside until further notice.
• We will not be able to tattoo the side of your neck, face, upper chest or front of your shoulders whilst Covid is still prevalent.
• If you have felt unwell or in contact with someone who has been unwell in the last 14 days we will reschedule with no loss to your deposit. Please let us know if you have had a reoccurring cough, loss of taste or sense of smell or high temperature.

These are the things we are going to be doing
• We have taken all the WHO and Barbicide COVID related courses online
• We will be wearing masks
• Staggering appointment times so people don’t arrive at the same time
• We will only have two tattooists in the shop at a time, this means we can get a 2-4 metre distances between people.
• Extra cleaning
• Limiting to one client each per day


Thanks for reading! I shall hopefully be updating this site more aaaand also Whispering Weeds will be getting it’s own website very soon!
Love to you all, hope you are not just surviving but thriving in one way or another!!


Hannah
xxx

Purple Rose Bristol

Hey everyone!

I’ve added some more “wannados” to the art section,

Here are the tattoos I’d like to make!

Also here is a work in progress from last week I tattooed on my friend Leigh!

It’s a concept piece based on her personality and life experience. I’m hoping to tailor more of my tattoo designs in this way.

Also I got to tattoo Emily’s old Cat pal Lelu on her last week! Old kitties are so cute.

Thanks for looking!

xx

Purple Rose

Hey everyone! Some great news! After my guest spot at Purple Rose Tattoo Studio in Bristol I had such a good time I decided to go and work there permanently! Everyone there is so nice and the studio and atmosphere are amazing!

I also got to make some great tattoos last week!

A grey lop rabbit on Tara who sat like a champ for it!

And I also go to make Jess’ little pirate bear Alice the Shitzu so she has her forever now!

I got a healed photo of the start of Zoe’s horsey before I coloured it and made it all swollen again! One more session and it’ll be finished and I can show yall how fancy it’s looking!

I’m doing my best at keeping this blog updated. I feel pretty inspired again after the last couple of weeks so expect even more!!

 

 

Cardiff

Hello! What a hectic few weeks but very very fruitful! So after leaving Southmead Tattoo Studio I had a few guest spots and a bit of travel, the penultimate destination was Cardiff! I guested with my good friend Patryk  Mazur at his own little amazing studio Surrealistic Sanctuary on City Road.

My biggest thanks to Patryk, I really had the best time and as usual he went above and beyond to help me out. deffo go give his Instagram a follow.

I made some more progress on Dave’s Slow Sleeve tattoo

Sloth is healed and the tortoise is only half done but I am really looking forward to getting more on this done 😀

Also Dave shared with me a photo of his cat Jacob with his tattoo!

I also did a bit more on Mark’s Dia de los muertos gal

It has got a tonne more to go though!

The Cardiff Tattoo convention was also amazing this year. I tattooed Dan’s other Chi Leela on his thigh. He sat for 6 hours with a broken leg (no painkillers) to get this done. He is a hard bastard!

Also amazingly I won an award for best of day!

Me Ruthey, Dan, Dan and Brodie went out afterwards to celebrate like the old farts we are and had a really fancy dinner!

Cardiff was great! I had the best time and hope to be back next year! Such a nice friendly convention!

 

Hannah

x