Tattooer Archives - Page 7 of 11

March 14, 2018

Interview with Lucy O’Connell

Lucy O’Connell creates stunning tattoos filled with colour and personality at Red Tattoo and Piercing in Leeds, UK. We chat to Lucy about her evolving style and inspirations…

What made you want to become a tattoo artist? I started drawing tattoo designs for friends who were older than me when I was around 14. And through doing doodles for them, which I now realise is the most irritating thing to receive as a tattooer, because I knew nothing about the fundamentals of tattoo design, I realised I could do this for a living when I started to do more research. Fortunately tattoos were more accessible in terms of media. I would buy all the magazines available from my area and then go and look up the artists.

What do you love most about your job? I love so many aspects of my job. I love developing my practice, the ability to share ideas and discuss with people I admire, working on a moving canvas is forever a challenge. I just feel like I’m learning all the time, but I also like talking to new people about their experiences in life. And currently I’m really trying to give myself a shove to develop myself more, I give myself a hard time a lot.

What inspires your work and drawings? Everything. Recently I’m trying to look more into myths and old stories to inspire me, but I’ll probably sit on them for a while as they’re such epic tales I need a while to ponder it before I know how to combat it. Nature has a lot to play. Whatever I’m watching can have an impact, or just my mood in general. I find if I’m struggling I’ll watch Attenborough or go to a gallery. Just kind of soak something new in.

What would you love to tattoo? Like I said before I’d like to sink my teeth into some myths and legends. Maybe some religious stuff too from all faiths. Norse gods are really interesting. I think subject matter that’s way bigger than me so I can try break out of my comfort zone. And always birds.

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Do you have any designs that you really want to do? I’ve got loads of designs I wanna tattoo, I keep a majority in a little book and take them everywhere with me, and the big ones don’t often get a home so they end up getting painted. I’m struggling more than ever to get rid of stuff I draw, which I can’t decide if that’s me, social media or brexit. I’ll keep trying.

How would you describe your style? It’s a clash of a lot of things. I can’t quite put a definition on it, I’m usually categorised as neo-traditional but I wouldn’t put myself there. I think neo-traditional lines have been blurred. I kind of think I’m a pop culture, neo-trad, art nouveau clash.

Is it fair to say that it has been evolving lately? I hope so, I’m trying to evolve all the time but I’m very aware of it, currently. Since the first convention of the year I’ve had a fire lit under me that makes me want to push myself somewhere that’s not so comfortable. But I hope everyone likes it or can see I’m trying.

What kind of direction would you like to take your work in? I’d like to go into a more layered version of my work. And making everything more animated. I’m also trying to take in light sources. We’ll see what happens.

Do you have any conventions or guest spots planned? I do! No mor plans other than these:

Newcastle – Big North Tattoo Convention, April 28th & 29th

Essex – Jayne Doe, June 14thth, 15th & 16th

Leeds Tattoo Expo, July 7th & 8th

Berlin – Sticks and Stones, August 9th, 10th & 11th

February 19, 2018February 19, 2018

Lucy Thompson: Breast Cancer Survivors & Tattoos

27-year-old tattooist Lucy Thompson based in at Skinflicted in Keighley, Yorkshire, has travelled to the US to learn how to create realistic three-dimensional tattooed nipples for women who have had a mastectomy…

Last year Lucy travelled to Texas to be the first UK artist to receive specialist training in the art of tattooing realistic areolas on breast cancer patients. It was her aim to shake up the industry and illustrate to breast cancer survivors that “they deserve better” when it comes to post op cosmetic reconstruction.

My Auntie had a mastectomy and got a tattoo done in hospital which has now faded to almost nothing so it needs re-doing – why is a surgeon even attempting to tattoo?- the experts should stick to what they know. This just isn’t good enough for a cancer surviver.

Lucy trained with The House of A.R.T (Areola Restorative Tattooing) in Texas, who have pioneered a unique way to give the illusion of a permanent and three-dimensional nipple opposed to other methods. Having learnt this skill Lucy is now offering this restorative service to mastectomy clients locally, the first being her auntie.

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Lucy, who’s been a tattoo artist for the last four years explains what influenced her to help cancer survivors:

After the trauma of going through cancer, I want to make the restorative period as stress free as possible and help women feel whole again. Why should they have to return for future treatment when it can be done in one process? Women are accepting second best as there has never been another option, but not many cosmetic tattooers have experience or have dealt with scarred tissue, especially tissue that has been through chemotherapy or has radiation burns or stretch marks from skin grafts – this is a huge concern. A tattoo artist understands the skin in a different way. We want to achieve painterly results and have the techniques to work with the skin and its delicacies to get the best possible results – the quality is of utmost importance.

Lucy is also offering tattoos to any trans/non-binary clients who have had surgery and unsuccessful nipple grafts. Her long-term plan is to open a clinic specifically for post medical treatment. She also plans to run drop in clinics throughout the country by travelling the UK visiting other studios, to enable others further afield than Yorkshire to benefit from the skills she has learnt.

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February 4, 2018

Lionel Fahy Tattoos

Tattoo artist Lionel Fahy is co-founder of the Parisian shop Les Derniers Trappeurs (LDT). A graduate of the Orleans Institute of Visual Arts in France, he has been creating illustrative drawings and tattoos for twenty years.

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My style is DREAMLIKE. Full of dreams, hope, wishes, secrets, double readings, and protective symbols. It does not meet any of the standards of classic tattooing, it is minimalist and stylised.

I love the work I create. I am lucky compared to many other artists. My customers come from the four corners of the world to get tattooed by me. To get something in my style and I am so grateful.

My biggest influences are my customers, my kids, my partner in life Tal and some books, and museums. I am inspired by my work as a duo artist with Tal. You can see our work on our blog.

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January 23, 2018June 13, 2020

Apprentice Love: Lauren Burrows

Having fallen in love with Lauren Burrow’s bold and spooky style on Instagram, our editor Rosalie, had to add a piece of Lauren’s girly neo-trad to her collection. Situated in Bedford UK, Seven Magpies Tattoo is home to tattoo apprentice Lauren, realism tattooist Mark Watson and traditional tattooer Sam Childs. I spent the day chatting to Lauren about her love of horror, doughnuts and knee tattoos…

What drew you to the world of tattooing? I always knew from a very young age that I wanted to do something with art, it was all I ever wanted. It was a natural progression into the realisation that tattooing was what I’d love a career in. I think neo-traditional work was probably what drew me in the most, I realised that out of all modern art I’d ever seen that the work I was seeing by neo-traditional tattooists was my favourite, and it was quite life changing really discovering all of that. When I was quite young I fell in love with Art Nouveau and the style, especially the work of Alphonse Mucha. I remember studying it and it remained to be my all time favourite style, influencing my work even more so as I got older.

There’s only three of you in the shop, and you’re pretty tight knit, did you know the guys before you started? I didn’t know the guys before I began my apprenticeship with them, but quite honestly of all things I could ever be greatful for, I’m so happy that I ended up working with them. I love my life at the shop, and I can never even begin to thank Mark and Sam enough for everything they’ve taught me, for being incredibly patient with me and for pushing me to improve every step of the way. Also our days are forever made more enjoyable by winding each other up as much as possible and giving hell with ridiculous amounts of sass which is very funny.

How did you get your apprenticeship and when did you start? What did you do before? I started my apprenticeship with Seven Magpies just over two years ago. I studied illustration and graphic design at the university of East London, but realised very strongly towards the end of my degree that tattooing was what I really wanted to do. During the time that I was putting my portfolio together and looking into it all, I heard that Seven Magpies were looking for an apprentice. It was quite literally the dream job as I’d known about them for a long time, since they are based in my hometown of Bedford, massively admired their work and couldn’t believe that the opportunity had popped up right when I was looking.

I tried my luck, asking if they’d be happy to take a look at my work, which they did. Shortly after that Mark offered me the apprenticeship and I still remember being so over the moon happy and basically in total shock for days!

Are there any artists that you admire or influence your work? I think It’s massively benefited me having the influence and guidance of both Mark and Sam because their styles also vary massively, so between them they’ve always been able to help me out and it’s been awesome to have the perspective from a realistic and neo-traditional view. The guys have always helped me to broaden my view on the industry, encouraging me to look at work from different genres, and I think it’s definitely helped me to appreciate styles like Japanese, realism and far more classic traditional looking work too. Neo-traditional work does remain to be a massive influence for me and it’s certainly where I imagine I’d completely love to end up!

As far as artists that inspire me, there are just so many incredible artists out there and even if they don’t directly influence my work, seeing the sheer talent which is around definitely pushes me forwards to try and improve within my own practice. If I were to try and narrow it down and give a few names of artists that I admire I’d say that Danielle Rose and Cassandra Frances have been two of my favourite artists for the longest time, and the work of Emily Rose Murray is completely beautiful and I love everything that she creates!

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Rosalie’s scorpion that Lauren created

I asked you to create a floral scorpion design, because I wanted to match your creepy yet girly style, would you agree that this is your genre? What would you love to tattoo? Do you have any drawn up designs you would like to tattoo? I would say that creepy and girly sums up everything that I love to create entirely! I’d love to tattoo more girl heads as they are one of my favourite things ever to draw. I also love anything with a Halloween theme – all year round, insects, bat heads and cocktails are all things that I’d love to tattoo. I have a flash book of designs which are all things I’d really like to do but there is a sassy, stabby little toad holding a knife that I particularly want to tattoo at the moment and am waiting for someone to claim him!

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Would you say your style is influenced by your love of horror? At the moment you’re reading IT by Stephen King, but what is your favourite book or film? Are there any characters that you are dying to tattoo? I love watching horror films, if ever it is up to me to choose a film to watch it will always be a horror! But I think in terms of inspiration for my art Guillermo del Toro’s films strike me the most as they are creepy but completely beautiful. I love Pan’s Labyrinth and Crimson Peak. I also love Tim Burton’s work and I adore his characters because they are so cute but also incredibly creepy! I love Edgar from Frankenweenie and would love to tattoo him. There are plenty of characters I’d be so happy to make into tattoos, Sally or Zero from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice, Edith Cushing and Lucille sharpe from Crimson Peak, Coraline, The Addams family (especially Wednesday Addams) and of course I’d love to do my own version of Pennywise the clown from IT.

Can you tell us a bit about your own tattoos? My favourite tattoos I currently have are a couple by Will Thomson – a lady with a ship in her hair and also a ship’s wheel with flowers. I absolutely love the wolf I have on my knee which was done at our studio by Sam Childs, it’s a massive monster of a wolf head and it’s so angry and awesome. I actually haven’t been tattooed that much, purely because of spending so many years as a student and then an apprentice and not having enough spare income to get what I really want. But I know it will be worth the wait and there are so many pieces I’m dying to get and a lot of artists that I know I really want to be tattooed by. Generally I think I’ll end up getting quite a few spooky and Halloween based tattoos, I’d love a big neo-traditional style sorceress lady. I also adore animals so I’m pretty much guaranteed to end up with a lot of those also!

December 18, 2017

Interview With Hannah Westcott

We chat to tattoo artist Hannah Westcott, who works at Hales Street Studios in Coventry, UK about her neo-traditional style, her very first tattoo and plans for 2018…

How long have you been tattooing? I have been tattooing professionally now for almost eight years. I started a couple of years prior to this just from home originally; practicing on myself and friends, before obtaining a job as a junior artist/apprentice in Melton Mowbray. I’ve since been based in Leicester, Coventry and until recently, Redditch, Birmingham. I’m now back in Coventry!

What drew you to the world of tattoos? I remember first becoming drawn to tattoos when I started to learn about the alt scene; the alt music scene was a big part of it, seeing musicians I loved with cool tattoos. I remember designing tribal tattoos for myself when I was a kid in school, I’m a kid of the 90s and I’d only really seen tribal work at that time! I’ve drawn ever since I was a kid and would copy stuff that I was drawn to.

When did you get your first tattoo and what was it? I got my first tattoo when I was 18. It was a classic rose on my should blade and it was a little sketch I made in biro, based on a rose I’d seen whilst researching online. I’ve since had that tattoo reworked/covered up as it began to look older than me!

How would you describe your style? I guess I would describe my tattooing style as neo-traditional. I mostly enjoy neo-traditional work, along with Japanese and anything in colour. Although I do enjoy Black & Grey work too and have a few large scale dot work pieces on the go. I’d say I’m pretty varied in the types of work i do. My favourite things to tattoo are animals, birds in particular and anything based on nature. I draw a lot of inspiration from the natural world. I also really enjoy ornate work and colour will always be my favourite type of work to do. I also specialise in cover ups.

Do you have any guest spots or conventions planned? I currently don’t have any conventions confirmed for next year yet but I will be looking to travel around and do some guest spots around the country at my friend’s studios. I find it’s a lot nicer getting to hang out in their lovely studios than the stress of dealing with setting up at conventions and the hustle and bustle of it all. I need to pull my finger out and get in touch with everyone to make arrangements! I can’t wait to see what 2018 will bring!