Mx.D.P

This project started as a tidy-up when I swapped the studio around. I found sheets of tattooing designs that reimagined 120 years of tattooing. I had drawn these in lockdown on Procreate and had printed them on Blockinford St. Cuthbert’s Mill 300gsm cold press watercolour paper. A handful I had painted, but these had not been touched. At first, I thought I’d laminate them and put them up in the studio as is.

Then, I thought some would benefit from some colour; using Dr Ph Martin Indian ink and out-of-date tattoo ink, I started to paint.

I was getting bored, and graffiti appeared.

I decided to take more time on the painting… there was plenty to practice on… I started to see it as meditation.

I began to line some with a nib dip pen in Royal Talens Indian ink. Tattooists used Talens as tattoo ink years ago until Talens didn’t want to be liable; they put a biocide in the ink and a warning on the bottle.

I wouldn’t fancy that under my skin, but the old Talens was an excellent tattoo ink, though it contained shellac. The old boys said it set in the skin and held the colour like a fence. I don’t think it did, but it certainly set and stayed there like a splinter of black. The new ‘super back’ tattoo inks tend to wander around the body through the lymph system. There is no evidence that it does any harm, though HSE every few years likes to have a pop at tattooing. The truth is humans have tattooed for thousands of years; it’s field-tested but has never been written up and peer-reviewed. I did offer my services for this to HSE as long as they paid me to do the study, so you never know!

Talens is fantastic to draw with, so smooth, and I enjoyed lining the sheets. At first, I couldn’t manage fine lines. The nib would dig into the paper and rough the line, but eventually, I got the hang of only dipping the tip a little and, using no pressure, float the nib across the cold press paper.

However the best look was varying the line weight

What I loved was the combination of era’s.

The old sheets are worth a fortune these days and avidly collected. This is a scrap from a 1910 sheet.

Tattoo designs have been constantly repainted and reimagined.

The soldier is World War one, the gypsy 1920’s the Devil Drive 1970’s and the Bunny is 2020 with my addition of ‘Non-Bunnary’ this year!

My pin-up started to get moustaches! I can see a whole new generation of designs getting drawn… I also continued to graffiti my sheets…

So what did I learn?

Cold press is rubbish for pen and ink, but you can do it!

Mixed line-weights are more visually appealing.

Colour is Soooo much better than black lines (I am biased)

I will probably never tattoo any of these designs, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve been commissioned to do another two tattoo sleeves; one is a traditional Japanese Koi and Dragon sleeve in black and red… remember the video post a few weeks back… the other is a continuation of a body piece and tells a generational story … I am after all a narrative tattoo artist… those will keep me going for a few years so I am not retiring from tattooing yet!

This summer I fell back in love with tattooing because I painted these…