I am currently involved in the development of a tattoo aftercare product. I can’t say much about it yet, but we need your help. We are looking to recruit a number of people to participate in a clinical trial.

To be eligible to participate you must be 18 years old or over, with a tattoo that has been inked in the last 12 months. Ideally you will need to live in and around the Manchester area. For further information email me at info@tattoos.co.uk

Thanks

Louis

A bit of fun doing this with a take on the Atat walkers from Star Wars

I often get asked how I come up with a drawing and its not easy to answer a question like that. I do have lots and lot of reference books and stuff I have collected from the internet but these images will give a bit of a idea.  Image one is where I have done the sketch and started adding detail. Image 2 is where the sketch is put on a light box and the lines are all inked in. Image 3 is the linework all done.  Image 4 is where the image has been put into photo shop and the colour rendering begins.  I will add the final drawing soon

Anyone growing up and living in Manchester during the 80′s and 90′s will know the name of Mike Sweeney.  Mike is a local legend and DJ of many many years and is probably most well know from his years on Piccadilly Radio or Key 103 as it is now.  Mike is currently at Real Radio  http://www.rockradiomanchester.co.uk/rock-jocks-shows/rock-jocks-m4cs/mike-sweeney/q9xwe3m2/   doing the Breakfast show with Dewsbury who interviewed me at my gallery show last year

Anyways Mike was first tattooed by me in 1996 so it was a great honor to be asked by Mike to do some more work on him which I did last month and here are the photos of then and now which I am sure Mike will thank me for but I will thank Mike for coming in and the two of us having a great trip down memory lane

Did this tattoo today and the image was done by a freelance artist called Igor Lukyanov   http://igor-lukyanov.blogspot.co.uk/

I really enjoyed doing this as it was a bit different from the norm.  Check out his work

Below is a picture I saw in a book called “A day in the life of London”  Its a Time Life photo essay that had some amazing images in it however this is the one that really caught my eye.  I think the photo was done in the late 70′s/early 80′s.  I have cropped some of it down but I know there are some guys out there who will recognize the studio.  Its seems unbelievable that people worked like that back in the day

Just got back from a 2 week busman’s holiday in Switzerland to draw, relax and get some work done

Visited Zurich for a couple of days and went to a fantastic exhibition at the main gallery were I saw some of Monet’s works that I have never seen before and I was really taken by the colours which this image does not really convey. He sat outside during the early evening with three coats on to try to capture this. In total he did 17 canvases like this Talk about dedication

Zurich was cold as well as these images below show

Whilst there I also found a fantastic little Italian restaurant in one of the suburbs which was a cross between Italian Baroque and Liberace. The food was excellent and very reasonable

The following day I had lunch in a traditional Zurich Beer house which was full of suits from the Swiss banks??  It really is a place of contradictions sometimes but its one of the things that I really like about the place

A Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe that is done in a “Etched” style drawing and then the colour and texture has been put in later in Photoshop

Had a trip to Morocco at the end of August. Weather was HOT, the food was good, the locals don’t like westerners unless you are spending money with them. Some of the artwork there was truly amazing.  I have purchased some reference books on this subject and will be using some of this in some of my future works

The evening at Generation Pop was a great success and the turnout was much better than expected.  I was run a bit ragged as I had to talk to people non stop all evening but a good night was had by all and I would like to thank all the people who purchased my artwork.  The exhibition will run for 3 weeks.  Anyone interested in purchasing artwork can either contact myself through the website or Generation Pop