Category: Tattoos

Posted on

Interview with Jonny Saunders

31-year-old tattooist Jonny Saunders tattoos out of Pulse tattoo studio in Banbury, Oxford. We chatted to Jonny about his dotwork swirl designs, how art relaxes him and how he chooses to decorate his own body with tattoos…

me.

How long have you been tattooing? I’ve been tattooing professionally for four years now. I used to study art, I had private art classes with Sue Burns who is the wife of Jim Burns the airbrush comic artist. Growing up with ADHD I found nothing interested me, except art. Art was the only thing I could do for hours on end and it helped to calm me down, it still does.

What made you want to become a tattooist? I wanted my artwork to have a bigger impact than I got on paper – it’s one thing to draw on paper and frame it but it’s another to mark someone for life. I love the rush of tattooing knowing I cant make any mistakes, the whole way from the power output to my running of the machine to how deep to go and what angle, and having it all work together to create amazing artwork to last a lifetime.

ornage peel

You tattoo in a lot of different styles, which is your favourite? Working full time as a tattooist brings many different styles of art daily. My favourite style and the one I want to make my name for is my 3D Dotwork stippling.

What do you love to tattoo and what would you like to do more of? As I’m still fairly new to tattooing I would love to do more and be known for my dotwork paint swirls and my custom mandala geometric designs. Big plans and designs to come.

dotwork buddha

What inspires your work? Are there any artists that you admire? I get inspired by doing photography and speaking with customers and their ideas. Without sounding stuck up I don’t admire anybody. I’m a strong independent artist with my own ideas and way of thinking. I have taught myself to tattoo and because of this I have my own way of working. I have my own thoughts on how art should turn out. In truth I want to be the one other admire.

When did you get your first tattoo? When I was 22, I got a tribal rose that was for my mum as her middle name is rose, but now I have it blacked out (my mum forgives me).

Twisted

You’re heavily tattooed, including your face, what sort of reactions do your face tattoos get?  Having face tattoos for me has done nothing but make me so much more confident and free. I get stared at constantly and random people come up to me asking about them and I love the attention. I blacked out one of my ears as I didn’t want to look stupid by blacking out both.

dotwork statue

What inspired you to cover your face and black out your ear? Was this a journey or more of a spur of the moment thing?  For me just the look of black abstract tattoos is as deep as it gets. It doesn’t mean anything to me there is no planing when it comes to the outcome of my body art. I get tattooed by Eli who works in Brighton, I show up and get tattooed. There is no plan, I just let him go crazy and I feel that with this way I won’t ever regret my body art. To be completely free of planing or worrying about if it will come out as planned feels amazing, there is no goal and no end.

paint swerl

Head to Jonny’s website to see more great tattoos or follow him on Instagram.

Posted on

Tattooed Travel Photographer Kym Ellis

We chat to 29-year-old Kym Ellis, a technical marketing lead and travel photographer, about her tattoos and work. At the moment Kym has no fixed address and instead chooses to slow travel around the world – right now she’s in Chiang Mai in Thailand…

Kym Ellis

When did you get your first tattoo and what was it? It was on my eighteenth birthday and it’s a small pisces star sign symbol at the bottom of my nape. I wanted it when I was 16, but my dad who has very old tattoos which he hates, told me to wait until I was old enough. It’s not a very good tattoo but I still kept it as part of my back-piece.

What inspired you to start getting tattooed? Music mostly, I grew up in my late teens with MSN and MySpace and getting into punk and metal was the first time I felt like I had my own identity. I actually kept my music tastes a secret from my school friends for quite a while because I knew they were not into that scene.

Then when I turned 16 I decided enough was enough and changed my style overnight. I never looked back, it was extremely freeing to express myself in the way that I wanted to rather than trying to please others.

Kym-budapest-2

Have tattoos changed how you see yourself and your body? Absolutely – getting tattoos gives me agency over my body and I definitely became more confident as I started to get more big pieces. Whenever I get a new tattoo, it only takes a few days for it to become a part of me. I often forget I have so many, and when I see old photos of a less-tattooed version of me I find it very strange to look at.

I still have some big gaps on my arms and legs that I want to fill up, but I am just taking it steady and enjoying the proces.

Stomach Piece By Romain Labordille

Do you think your tattoos affect how others see you?  Yeah, in both good and bad ways. To be honest I don’t get too much negativity about my tattoos these days, but it can happen occasionally because I travel so much and different places have a different perception of tattoos as a whole.

What sorts of reactions do your tattoos get? For the most part I get a lot of compliments about my tattoos and people often ask me where I got them done, how many I have, or how long they took. Sometimes people want to touch them, that’s kinda weird!

There are still certain places that I visit where tattoos are less accepted and I definitely notice people staring at me. But it really isn’t the majority of people, and my way of dealing with it is to be proud and confident.

If people ask me what the meaning behind my tattoos are, I show them the tribute portrait of my cat that I grew up with. I carry her memory around with me everywhere and yes I am aware that this puts me firmly in the crazy cat lady category.

Cat tattoo by Sam Stokes

My cat Tess, by my friend Sam Stokes

How do you find your work and tattoos mix? Can you show them freely at work? In the earlier days of my career when I worked for companies in the UK, I mostly had to cover my tattoos up. It’s not the worst problem in the world to have, but I never felt like I could take my full self to work and it did wear me down eventually. In hindsight I should have just had them on show. It probably wouldn’t have done me any favours in the workplace but I also don’t think it would have got me fired.

Ever since I started working remotely for technology companies, it’s been the complete opposite. I’ve always been accepted for who I am by all of my colleagues. I wouldn’t take a job where I have to hide my skin again.

Is your photography a creative outlet that allows you to share the real you? It used to be, when I started out with photography about eight years ago I did a lot of portraiture and used myself as a subject when there was no one else around to photograph. Alongside building my tattoo collection, this was a means of expression.

Travel photography is my main focus now, because that’s such a big part of my life. I share a lot of my photos for free on Unsplash.

Arctic

What future career plans do you have? I have made some big career leaps in the past couple of years, from finding my first remote job to becoming more of a technical marketer and improving my coding skills. I’m really happy with my career at the moment and in the future I’d like to move into senior leadership or marketing operations.

I’m going to keep travelling too – being able to work from anywhere is such an incredible opportunity. My next project is to learn how to sail a boat. Then my nautical tattoos will really come into their own!

How do you find travelling and getting tattooed?  It’s really hard to get tattoos when you travel a lot. From living in places where there aren’t many artists who do the style you’re after, to trying to get a booking when you’re only going to be around for a few weeks. I have a full back-piece that is still missing it’s colour because I need to get back to the UK so Ben Stone can finish it up for me.

Back Piece by Ben Stone

That said I’ve managed to get some really great tattoos during my travels. I got a mountain range on my arm when I was in the Arctic Circle, a beautifully gothic traditional tattoo at a convention in Cape Town by @jarretcrosson, a gorgeous snake and florals from @mooreahum.tattoo in Vancouver, and my stomach piece was by @romain_labordille in Bali.

tattoos by jarret crosson and moorea hum

Posted on

Tattoo Artist Myra Brodsky

New York tattoo artist Myra Brodsky has created a line of spooky inspired tattoos titled Cabinet of Curiosities, which features ghouls, goblins and 19th century magic. Strongly influenced by art nouveau and the Victorian age, Brodsky has developed a style that is feminine, classic yet dark…

1. MyraBrodsky-portrait

I’m not interested in making little girls happy in the simplest way, and if I was I wouldn’t even be able to serve that, I only see the world through my own twisted mind and it just happens to be dark inside of there. I cannot help it.

What inspired you to become a tattoo artist and what drew you to the world of tattooing? I did not become a tattoo artist because I really wanted to. For me it came out of an emergency situation. I was 19 when I started to tattoo. I had to pay college fees and rent all by myself after I lost my father. My mother stopped talking to me and disappeared after he passed so I had to figure out a way to provide for myself. Luckily tattooing gave me the chance to generate some pocket money. At that time I had no idea what I was doing so I let my insane state of mind direct my actions.

MyraBrodsky-fox

How long have you been tattooing? I started tattooing in 2008 when I met my best friend at the time who was already working at a tattoo shop. I did not take it seriously when I started and it was more of a way to try out things and tattoo my friends. It took me a while to figure out that it was something I could actually get really good at.

MyraBrodsky2

How would you describe your style? How has it developed over time? It’s always very hard for me to put in words what my style is about. I get inspired by a lot of different things, periods of art and places I’ve been to. I settled down in New York City a while ago. But when I was still traveling from one place to another without a steady home base, I was so mad about absorbing all sorts of inspiration I was able to find anywhere in this world. Soon my style transformed into a blend of decorative elements you can basically find in any given period of art from the past and comic-like rather more modern characters that bring the scenery to life. I’m glad that I received my O1-visa for aliens of extraordinary ability as I have the privilege to travel back and forth between America and Europe whenever I want to. I’m sure my style is going to transform again in a few years.

Myra-Brodsky-Cabinet-Curiosities-1

Designs from Cabinet of Curiosities

What do you love to tattoo and what would you like to do more of? What I most like about tattooing is trying to figure my clients out and find a personalised idea that really suits them. Everything has to make sense no matter what idea we are talking about. If I tattooed a large-scale griffin on someone’s arm there’s supposed to be a reason why. Personalities become alter-egos become simplified images.

MyraBrodsky19

What inspires your tattoos? Do you think your German roots inspire your designs? I would not necessarily say that my German roots play a fundamental role since I consider myself a European citizen rather than a German. I went to art school and I know a lot about art history and love to help myself to all the decorative and adorning elements that most periods offer. They’re classic, they’re organic and can easily be used as a timeless way to complement your design. It just makes sense to me to tattoo them since classic art never gets old. People still pay admission to see old paintings in museums so I’m sure they won’t regret getting details of them tattooed. But still I need something else to break the sweetness in there. And I’d like to manifest that these days I mix my knowledge of art history with more modern elements I find in adult cartoons from the 70s-90s.

MyraBrodsky-Moon

You’ve created a series of designs based on a Cabinet of Curiosities, where did this idea come from? I take the subway everyday, I drink a lot of wine among other things and I watch a lot of B-Movies. I guess that explains at least something.

Myra-Brodsky-Cabinet-Curiosities-5

Design from Cabinet of Curiosities

Posted on

Almost Amazing Grace

25-year-old Grace, who lives in the South East, right by the sea write things, mostly her blog but also bits and bobs for other websites and publications. Grace also models, manages social media for small businesses, and occasionally lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Winchester. In this post Grace talks about how open she is on her blog and what her tattoos mean to her…

25.03.2018 mine

Can you tell us about your blog, how long have you been writing and what can readers expect to see on it?I started my blog when I was 17; full of feelings, hormones and angst, with nowhere to put it all. I made myself an online diary between lessons one day at college, and loved updating it with personal stuff for a couple of years – until I realised that it was a public domain and people could actually read it!?? Then it became a convenient place to post my creative writing work while I was studying at uni, still with the occasional (and much more carefully edited) personal piece. When I came to the end of my degree, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour and found my blog was the perfect place to share all the info about it, for folks to read – while spilling out all my emotions, too. These days, Almost Amazing Grace is a place for book lovers, coffee addicts, theatre goers, feminists, sex-positive humans and anyone needing a few lifestyle tips or travel recs.

grace (9 of 74)

You’re very open on Instagram about your life, what inspired you to do this? I made myself an Instagram account when I was away at university, and at first it was just a place to share super-filtered selfies, snaps of my cute (but very cold and damp) box bedroom, and blurry portraits of the family cat whenever I visited home. These days I share a whole lot more on there; it’s not just a highlights reel. Much like when I started my blog, and why I continue to write it, I love being able to pour myself into my socials, hopefully be a voice for good, and find others like me. I’ve found friends for life online, maybe more than I ever have ‘IRL’.

Grace Jan (18 of 20)

You often post about your recovery from surgery and radiotherapy, scarring and your body, what motivates you? Do you hope to raise awareness or help other people in similar situations? Readers of my blog and followers of my social media accounts will probably know almost everything about me, and what’s happened in my life in the last few years. I have blogged about every step of my journey with a brain tumour – my operations, my radiotherapy treatment, my reconstruction and my struggles with post-op recovery and general mental health. I don’t hold much back. I also share photos of myself and my fabulous scars (usually taken by genius babes Erin Veness or Sophie Mayanne) on my Instagram grid very regularly – partly because I do love the way I look, but also because I want other people to see something a bit different and maybe realise not everyone looks like the models in the mass media.

Sometimes strangers or friends of friends will approach me, in public or online, and tell me they feel they know me – and that they’ve experienced certain things with me. Some say my posts have moved them significantly; they may even say they relate, and then share their own stories of health problems or life events, and I always feel so honoured they trust me with their personal information. I think it’s so important people are open, and talk about what they’re going through in life; bottling things up and ignoring your own feelings won’t do you any good in the long run. I really hope others find me and see me being my true self, and can apply some of those values to their own lives and maybe have more kindness in how they view themselves.

grace (10 of 74)

Have your tattoos helped you to see your body differently or love your body more? My tattoos are the way I decorate and express myself – they are also the best way I can think of to reclaim my body, after everything it’s been through that was out of my control. I get beautiful and very personal things inked onto my skin, for all to see, and for me. Sadly, there are people in my life (some of them are family, or family friends, and others are just strangers who feel the need to voice opinions) who don’t ‘get it’, and some of them even say to my face that they’re not a fan of the artwork. I don’t get defensive very often, because to each their own etc. but also it’s none of their business, and it makes me happy, and that’s all that matters.

Grace Jan (16 of 20)

Which is your favourite piece or the one that means the most to you? I’d say my favourite tattoo will always be my first – the little words on my left forearm, a phrase I heard a lot from Grandad when I was young that I now have on me, in his handwriting, to hopefully serve as a reminder not to mess about or make bad decisions in life. That one was actually done by the gorgeous Kelly when she worked in a little shop near my university – and OMG, look how far she’s come!? The babe.

My second and third favourites would have to be my beautiful brain and crystals on my upper left arm (by Ciara Havishya,) and one of my most recent additions, a drawing the wonderful Frances Cannon did just for me, inked by the babe Vicky Jeffree in Birmingham.

Photographs taken by Erin Veness, more of her work can be found here.