Art Deco Freesia Tattoo

Drew this tattoo for Kate a while back - but then life got in the way of her being able to get it done. Not to worry - she finally made it through to get tattooed this week, and we both agreed the result was worth the wait! She wanted me to draw her a spray of freesias in an Art Deco style, which took a bit of getting my head round at first, but once I got a handle on how I wanted them to look, I really liked the end result.

Lotus Tattoo with Ampersand, Orchids and Cherry Blossom

Just finished this very pretty tattoo on the inner forearm of Naomi,who also happens to be the daughter of my shop manager! It's kind of strange tattooing someone you've known since they were born (!)- but she sat great and the tattoo turned out lovely. Will get a pic once it's healed to better show all the colour gradations.

Japanese Sleeve Tattoo with a Twist (of Lemon)

This tattoo has been ongoing for a couple of years - partly due to the fact that the client, Paul, studies Japanese and disappeared to Tokyo for an academic year... ...we actually met up with him when we were over there last April so he could show us round.
The original list for his design contained a huge number of ideas - as is often the case with tattoo designs I had to persuade him to whittle them down to a few less- but the 'contents' list is still fairly impressive: Mercury, milk, honey, tarot symbols, coins, a man's hand holding a wand, a woman's hand holding a peach, several jewels, a pomegranate, flowers, bees, a cup of green tea with a slice of lemon... all rendered in an Art Deco style against a less than traditional background of floral kimono fabric in sumi grey.Great fun And now it's done. You can see some of Paul's other Japanese inspired tattoos on my facebook page 'Venus Flytrap Tattoo'

Art Deco Floral Hip Tattoo

I did this tattoo a while back for a Welsh customer who works in the theatre and shares my love of stylised Art Deco flowers.
This was her first tattoo so she was slightly terrified on the day but all turned out great as you can see...
She was up in Edinburgh for the Festival so came by to say hello and let me take a photo of it all healed up and lovely!

Japanese Dragon,Cobra Geisha and Jigsaw...

Last few days have been spent slaving over a combination of hot drawing board and overheating tattoo machines... ...last night had takeout Japanese food (life is hell) and worked on LATE in the studio.
So - stopping earlier tonight to meet my friend Ev (or Aussie Cookie as we know her - pictured above with the cherry blossom/sakura/peony tattoo I did for her) cos she wants to see Quiffy (my hubby - Paul Paterson - www.paulpaterson.com ) playing his geetar in 'Be Bop a Lula' so he got us comps for tonight.

Been neglecting my photo duties a bit too- yesterday I took a snap of the chrysanthemum tattoo above -it's part of a piece that stretches from left knee to right shoulder and incorporates some old tattoo work into the design as well.

This is the Japanese dragon thigh piece I started a couple of weeks back - today I tidied up the upper lines, added black background and some sumi grey shading work.

The beautiful and talented young lady pictured here is Kirsteen A.K.A. Boobie Trap Corsets. (http://www.boobietrapcorsets.com/) The first tattoo I did on Kirsteen was a geisha pinup on her calf - then she travelled up from Norwich a few times to get the green cobra geisha and skull roses you see in the pic.

We're now working on turning the cobra geisha arm into a full sleeve - so while she was up in Edinburgh today we did some planning and measuring - and I'm going to come up with something suitably bright yet Japanese influenced featuring flowers and fans - with possibly the odd skull thrown in for good measure!

Have ordered a jigsaw to start cutting out frames for some of my bigger paintings - ha - should be suitably dangerous!

Am also currently drawing up a large design with a chrysanthemum on a fan, a samurai sword and LOTS of cherry blossom. For a change. Gorgeous.

Anyway - gotta look a bit less 'work-like' for Pauls show - so Bye!!

Art Deco Geisha and Veiled Spanish Lady...

Last night was at a cocktail party 'meeting and greeting' the cast and crew of 'Be Bop a Lula' - it's a show from LA that's in Edinburgh for the Festival Fringe - and my lovely hubby is musical director (and playing live guitar) for the Festival version. Thankfully I'm not drinking these days - cos we both had to get up early today - Paul for rehearsals and me for 2 big tattoos...Today was a 'finishing tattoos' kind of a day - in the morning was Junior, with his technicolour art deco style geisha. He already had an existing tattoo on the outside of his upper arm -you can see the background clouds from this on the right hand side of the photo, so we put the geisha on the inside of his arm to create a half sleeve.
He's obviously happy with the results because now I'm going on to draw an equally stylised and brightly coloured phoenix for his forearm - which will end up as a full sleeve.

This afternoon I got to put the finishing touches to one of my favourite tattoos - Mays Spanish Lady. May originally asked me to design one of my 'signature' geishas for her right shoulder - but, since she's very Spanish I asked if she would mind if her lady was Spanish instead of Japanese. We both loved the resulting design - and once we do a proper photoshoot you'll be able to see just how much the tattoo lady resembles her beautiful owner!

I've got several such photoshoots planned for my new website - now all I need is 27 hours in the day to get the time to create the 'settings' and get them done!

Japanese Koi Carp Sleeve Tattoo

A couple of weeks back I forgot to photograph the start of Alby's sleeve, as I'm not quite into the swing of this blogging thing just yet!
I posted the design anyway - but this time - yey! - remembered to do the digital camera thang and here you see it.
This was sitting number three - by the time we're done there should be six or seven koi (I don't like many even numbers but six is fine for some reason....), and they will go from brightly coloured at the wrist to the wee sumi grey one at the top.

Albys lovely wife is in on Tuesday to start some Art Deco daisies and writing on her calf, in memory of her Gran.

This afternoon I'm finishing the design for a coverup which will involve covering most of the clients upper arm with Tibetan style flowers - mainly peonies. (What is it with people from Dundee getting peony tattoos anyway - and that's not a complaint!). Will post pics of that once it gets started cos it's a pretty drastic change from the existing tattoo!