Art Deco Cherry Blossom Geisha Tattoo in Teal and Pink

Saturday morning was spent putting the finishing touches to the cherry blossom geisha tattoo pictured here. This is what you might call one of my 'signature geisha'. All of the geisha tattoos I do have an Art Deco stylised look to them - some more than others, this one very much so - which is enhanced even more by the teal/pink/black colour.

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!

Flame Geisha with Sakura

This is another Japanese style sleeve which has been ongoing for quite a while - it's owner was working as a chef and now as the kitchen manager for Hard Rock Cafe - which means that finding time to get tattooed, and particularly to heal, hasn't been easy. But she's looking lovely nonetheless! The grey flames at the top of his arm were already there so I put more further down the design to make them part of the finished sleeve - hence her name of Flame Geisha...

Today we worked on the forearm as much as possible -it's insanely busy here in Edinburgh at the moment with the Edinburgh Festival being on and it's a bit easier trying to run a busy kitchen if you can actually bend your arm - so no elbow coverage till holiday time kids!!

The entire sleeve will be in shades of grey, pink and red - but we've sneaked in a blue cherry blossom. Just because we could. And it looks great.

I did start the zombie ice cream tattoo as well but we're waiting for the colour to be in that before I take the photo - and that will have to be another day cos Ms Ice Cream has been averaging about 3 hours sleep a night of late, so wasn't up for a long tattoo sitting.

Rock'n'Roll!!

Sakura Geisha and Koi with Maple

The beautiful geisha pic above is a tattoo I did on the lovely Linda a while back - the tattoo was done over a few sittings - partly because it is so detailed, especially the kimono fabric, and partly despite the fact that Linda is something of a trooper, it really is no fun having your ribs tattooed!
She'd booked herself in for an hour this morning - so we started on the background - which as you can see from the photo will be covered in pink sakura and possibly a few sumi grey branches - but not if that's going to look too busy.
The sakura look quite harsh because they've just been done, but the idea is that with their pink outlines they will 'sink' into the background once they settle down, leaving the geisha to remain in the foreground as the focus of attention.


This afternoon was spent doing a couple of hours on Michaels koi and maple sleeve. The first colour I put in this tattoo (in the maple leaves at the top) came out a little faint - but we've resolved that and the next lot of colour and shading in the koi have come out great - so it's onward and upward - just as koi should be!! I'll leave the maple leaves for a little while before skimming back over them to 'soup them up'!
I'm in the process of designing the inside of this half sleeve - with a large scrolling chrysanthemum flower and some loose petals floating in the water. The flower will be oranges into golds and yellows, sticking with the hot/autumnal colour palette against a background of sumi grey and black.
Talking of the background - I'm thinking of making it really dark - so the grey and orange koi, red and orange maple, and golden chrysanthemum will really stand out against it once it's all settled down.
Till tomorrow then - when we should be seeing a sakura geisha sleeve with fire and the aforementioned zombie ice cream!

3 day escape to Ben Nevis

Both of us have been working crazy hard in recent history - so we had kept this past weekend sacred - no band gigs, no tattoos, no nothing (which wasn't easy cos everyone seemed to want us to do something that weekend) - and we took off to the Highlands camping.

Which in itself is pretty amazing - cos camping isn't something we generally (for that read ever)do - the only time we've put the tent up previously was the one time we didn't stay in a hotel when Paul played the Americana Festival.
This camping trip was dreamed up when we were in Japan in April - we were standing looking out over Lake Chuzenji and talking about how beautiful Scotland is and how we should really make more of an effort to get out and see our own country... ...so we are! And we're not bad 'campers' (!) either, we've discovered.

It did us the power of good just to stop for those 3 days - I'm now back tattooing away again.

Today I drew the background for a Japanese chest piece - it's the last section of a half bodysuit I've been working on over the last year or so - the main features of which are koi and sakura - definitely some cool pics of that to come. Then I traced a leg for a huge coverup featuring more koi and sakura in shades of blue - very Art Deco and stylised for that one.

This afternoon I started the daisy legpiece with Art Deco writing - a photo of that one after the next (final) session.

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!

Stylised Pink Deco Sakura Tattoo

This tattoo, featuring very stylised pink sakura flowers with interconnecting buds and leaves runs all the way from right shoulder to right big toe - encircling her entire body as it spirals downward! We're currently at her calf - the outlines went on this morning - so only a couple more sittings to go before what should be a very beautiful and spectacular photo shoot.

Japanese Dragon Tattoo

Did this very cute 'Dad' tattoo on Kats foot this morning - traditional stuff isn't something I do much of these days but I can be talked into it if it involves muchos kawaii nonsense ( I refer you to my earlier blog involving zombie ice cream and some very kawaii bat sweets...).
Foot tattoos are notoriously painful but she did great - and is booked in for 'Mum' on the other trotter in about a month.

At the other end of the spectrum - finished this guy this afternoon - we're gonna do the usual 'get a decent picture' routine after it's all healed up and settled down.

After all that excitement and a yoga class to unwind am well knackered - so off to sort out stuff for tomorrow before I keel over.

Super Sushi!

Eek! Been too busy to keep up with my new-found blogging hobby....

Saturday morning involved colouring in the tail of a dragon that goes from knee to armpit - that one's been on the go for a while! Then had someone come in to check their design I'd drawn - cherry blossom (no really) and bamboo to go up her side - all A-OK so now booked in. Very Pretty.

Then came a consultation for more koi carp - a guy from Kent who wants koi and flowers surrounding his calf - should be beautiful but have to behave and add it to the end of the drawing list!!

Sat evening was spent with my gorgeous hubby at a birthday party for my pal Radio 1/Scotland DJ Vic Galloway - his lovely partner Lexi had invited us all round for sushi (height of civilisation - she'd made loads and it was fantastic!) at their flat before Vic DJ'd the night away at a local bar.

Sunday was one of those 'do the million things you never get time to do' days - the ones that normal people seem to do all the time...

And finally today was a full-on drawing day to try and catch up - two flowery legs and yet more (blue) koi - started designing a coverup with them.

Bored yet?

I am with the sound of my own typing so off to get on with it. Over and out.

Cherry Blossom Geisha with Sword

This tattoo started with a flurry of cherry blossom on the clients shoulder as a coverup for a tiny first tattoo.
The cherry blossom turned out so pretty we've gone on to add the geisha, which I just finished this morning,and next sitting we're starting on the inside of the arm to make it a half sleeve.

The design for that includes an owl, a rose and a horseshoe - not what you'd generally expect to find with a geisha but that's half the fun and the design looks great (though I do say so myself...).

From Art Nouveau to Zombie Ice Cream

Yesterday was a geisha day - getting close to finishing one of my 'trademark' geisha tattoos in my equally trademark colours of pink and teal. That one should be finished at the next sitting so we've arranged to leave time to take some decent photos at that point (which should be in about 3 weeks).

I also talked to the lovely Sarah from Electric Cabaret (an alternative clothes store up the road from me) about designing her a zombie ice cream tattoo (with added bat sweets, naturally). Started the beautiful art nouveau lady above this morning - yet another cracking amount of outlines!

Last but by no means least found the artwork for one of my old business cards I thought I'd show you - come to think of it should really put some of the new ones up too...

Off to draw - more later.

Japanese Dragon Lines

Started this dragon on Richie this morning - the eventual plan is for full-colour - blue dragon, red 'trimmings'....
It's only his second tattoo, but he sat like a star - so I got pretty much all the lines on in one, which is great going cos this critter fills a sheet of A3!
Was supposed to be doing final tidy-ups on a floral sleeve this afternoon but half the guys work are down with the 'flu right now so that's another one for another day.

What that means is a LARGE mocha coffee before some serious drawing then a yoga class to
unfold from tattooing hunchback to relatively upright...