Salon Serpent

A few years back I saw some work by a dutch artist named Angelique Houtkamp in a magazine and loved it. It was based on old school tattoo flash although with a quirky modern edge and no small amount of humour to it. I really wanted to get a tattoo done by her but her being based in Holland made it a bit of a problem, so when we decided we were coming to Amsterdam this summer I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I had tried to book an appointment, but I got it the wrong way round and booked the holiday then tried to book the appointment, in hindsight I should really have done that the opposite way round. Thankfully her salon reserve Saturdays for walk in appointments. They advise on the facebook page that, although they open at twelve, people often start queueing from 10 or earlier. Just to be safe I decided to head there for nine-ish. As it turned out I got there for around ten to nine to find there were two girls in the queue ahead of me already. They had come all the way from Australia and, only having one shot at getting a piece by her, decided to queue from eight am.

Someone else arrived around ten minutes after me then others started showing up regularly after that so that by opening time at twelve there were between fifteen and twenty of us waiting. Unfortunately today they only had Angelique and Suzanne working on tattoos so there was no way everyone was going to get seen, and as it turned out each of them were only able to see three people each. I was so pleased I made it down for third in line as I duly selected the one off piece I wanted and got a card telling me to come back at five pm to get it done.

I headed up to meet with Roz, Maddy and Sally and had a wander round town and some food with them then headed back to the hotel for a wee bit, before making it back for about quarter to five to get my tattoo done. It all went very smoothly and I love the finished piece which is a version of her tattoo flash style take on Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl.

She was even kind enough to pose for a blip, although only if I agreed to be in it with her so she didn't have to be in the photo on her own, so Saskia from teh shop took a quick picture for us. A great experience and well worth the queueing. I'll definitely go back to get more work done when I have spare cash and I'll know next time to book the appointment then book the holiday round it.

the family met me afterwards and we headed out to a great Italian restaurant called Trattoria Donna Sofia, which came highly recommended to us and lived up to the recommendation, for a final dinner in Amsterdam before heading home tomorrow.

All in all a fantastic day and I'll blip the tattoo once it's healed up.