Apprentice Love: Lucy Alice

Here at Things & Ink we like to share our love for finding new tattooists and support those who are making a name for themselves in the industry. Lucy Alice is a tattoo apprentice and true cat lady, who tattoos out of Cat’s Cradle Tattoo Studio in Rawtenstall, Lancashire UK. 

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How long have you been tattooing and how did you start your apprenticeship This is a super long story, so I’ll just attempt to keep it short and sweet. I’ve been tattooing just over a year now at Cat’s Cradle. I have had a few apprenticeships here and there before this one though. I started an apprenticeship when I was 18 and had another after that, but unfortunately both didn’t work out due to other commitments. I’m 24 now so it’s been a long journey but totally worth it. When you want something this much, you have to work for it and accept that it’ll take some time.

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What inspired you to become a tattoo artist? I’ve always been into art, since I can remember. I’d spend my Saturday job money on paints and sketchbooks every single week without fail. I never knew what career path I wanted to take until I was 17. We have two hair salons in the family so it was almost compulsory to go into the hair business. It was only until a customer asked what I’d like to do eventually, when my colleague said she could see me being a tattoo artist. So here we are!

How does it feel being a woman in the tattoo industry? To be honest, I haven’t had too much experience whilst tattooing. I’ve been extremely lucky with my clients, they’ve all been amazing. So that side has been great so far. Whilst apprenticing at other studios, I do believe woman are treated differently. I get told far too often that I’m too nice and therefore get taken advantage of frequently. I’m really lucky to be in a studio now in which I feel equal and taken care of. And let’s not leave out tattooed women in general! The looks we get, the amount of people that grab your arm to “take a closer look”. Not forgetting the “what about on your wedding day?” speeches from the older generation.

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How would you describe your style? This is always a difficult one for me. I’d say traditional with a little crazy spin. I love drawing faces on anything! Using wacky colours for animals that aren’t technically that colour (*ahem* pink). I draw a lot of cute bits and bobs but still love old school traditional. Muted colours mixed with brights are my favourite colour palettes.

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What inspires your tattoos? Are there any artists that you love? My cats. End of. I say every day that I just flipping love cats! I currently have five so they give me a lil’ inspiration now and again. My all time favourite artist is definitely Jemma Jones from Sacred Electric. I get tattooed by Jemma when I can and have followed her work for years. She inspires me on the daily and she’s just a lovely person in general. Some other artists I absolutely love are Harriet Heath, Gemma Carter and Kelly Smith.

What do you love to tattoo and what would you like to do more of? I absolutely LOVE tattooing cats. Big cats, small cats, they’ll all do. I also love tattooing cherubs, babies, moons, clowns, lady heads, any animals. Basically if it’s cute, I wanna tattoo it!

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How does tattooing make you feel? Including the tattoos you create and the tattoos you have on your own body. It’s a crazy feeling when you really think about it. The fact that people enjoy my work enough to have it on their skin forever. It’s incredible. The pieces that I have on my own body make me feel so much more confident. I’ve collected pieces by all of my favourite artists and couldn’t be happier with the outcome. I love that when I get tattooed, people recognise pieces by different artists. It’s nice to know that they have perfected their own styles enough to distinguish it amongst others. That’s what I’m aiming for.

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Tatts for Cats: Charity Tattoos

The feline welfare charity, Cats Protection in Coventry, is holding a collection of tattoo fundraisers to help cats in the local area. Cats for Tatts will showcase three flash days in three different tattoo studios in the city of Coventry…

  1. Saturday 20th October – Queen of Hearts Tattoo Parlour, Castle Yard, Hay Lane
  2. Saturday 27th October – Grizzly’s Art Collective, Belgrave Road, Wyken
  3. Tuesday 6th November – The Drawing Room, FarGo Village

The three tattoo flash days, and the cat-themed raffles will raise money for Cats Protection’s Coventry Branch, part of the UK’s leading feline welfare charity which help around 190,000 cats and kittens each year.

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Cat design raffle prize by Joanne Baker 

Each studio and tattoo artist is drawing up sheets of cat related tattoo designs for you to choose from and book. Once you have your tattoo you can donate to Cats Protection, alongside some of the artists who will be donating a percentage of their fee.

In addition there are two cat-themed raffles – one will see four lucky winners get one of four unique tattoo designs – including the Tatts for Cats china cat (above), by the renowned artist, Coventry born, Joanne Baker.

The second raffle includes a number of unique prizes such as a bespoke pet portrait and custom artwork. After all of the ink is dry you can vote for your favourite tattoo  which can win the ‘Cat’s Whiskas’ trophy.

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Cat flash sheet by @stephhesketh

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Cat flash sheet by @emilylouise.tattoo

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Tattoo  flash designs by @boo_ink

Dolly Osborne, volunteer fundraiser for Coventry Cats Protection:

Tatts For Cats promises to be three really special events – especially as it will help raise some much needed funds to help us care for unwanted cats. We would like to thank all of the wonderful artists who are giving up their time, talent and money to make the lives of little kitties a little bit easier.

As someone who has been a part of the tattoo community for a long time, I am aware it has a long and established history of supporting good causes. It also has a significant number of cat lovers. We thought it was time we brought these two elements together to help our furry friends

Make sure to follow Tatts for Cats on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for more details and updates. 

Interview with Iris Lys

30-year-old travelling tattoo artist Iris Lys is based in Liège Belgium, where she guets at a friend’s shop every month. We chat to Iris about her love for cats, how her tattoos have progressed since she began tattooing and how she wants to create larger pieces… 

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How long have you been tattooing? I started tattooing in 2005 and I made my first tattoo ever in 2003, when I was just 17. That was in an awful shop in France, so I don’t count it, I started a real apprenticeship in Helsinki Finland at the end of 2004.

How did you start? What did you do before? I have always loved body modifications and I have always drawn and somehow I just knew it was my thing. I moved to Finland (where my mum is from) a year after I finished school, with the goal of finding a place to start my tattoo apprenticeship. I remember I arrived in Helsinki and found this shop where I got tattooed and I had all of my drawings in my bag hoping I would get the balls to ask for an apprenticeship. I showed them my drawings and they took me on!

My drawings had nothing to do with tattoos when I began, I think my drawings were pretty bad, but I was young and nobody makes perfect drawings from a young age! I had a difficult apprenticeship, as I was a very shy girl who couldn’t speak Finnish very well. So sometimes the language barriers got a bit problematic! I consider myself to be self made, no one really showed me things or helped me understand things and how to get better that’s why I learnt very slowly.

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Do you have a background in art? Both my parents are artists, they always took us to exhibitions and made us draw or do anything artistic. My father was an art teacher for years until he stopped to have more time for his own art, he was a sculptor and amazing painter. My mom also paints, draws and makes traditional Finnish wall tapestry, they both made me love art. I went to an art school in Helsinki for a year too but I wasn’t really into it as I wanted to learn tattooing  and I thought learning how to paint wasn’t really my thing which I now regret since I  would have learn so much.

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Describe your style, has it changed? I guess I can call my style traditional with a girly/kitty touch.  I use a lot of traditional images as inspiration that I try to adapt in cat style like rock of ages “rock of kitties”, pharaoh’s horses “pharaoh’s kitties”, handshake “paw shake”, I like to add funny words to the drawings. I also like to create funny and naughty designs with asses and cats involved!

My style has changed in a way and so has my tattooing ability. I am only now after 11 years of tattooing kind of happy with what I do since I have been travelling so much, living in different countries, working in a lot of shops and learning things from others. I am so much happier and confident now, I always knew I wanted to tattoo and I want to until I am unable to keep a machine in a my hand.

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What do you like to tattoo and draw? I love to draw and tattoo flowers, hands, lady faces and of course cats!  I’m always happy to have people contacting me about their cat projects, especially when they have very funny ideas! I like doing other stuff too,  I don’t want people to think I’m not able to do anything else than cats or to think I only make palm size tattoos which isn’t right! I like bigger project too and when they have cats in it I am even happier.

What is it about cats that you love so much? I come from a tiny village in south of France where we always had cats and even more cats were coming to our garden, wild ones, I remember trying to catch them very silently to pet them, I have just always loved cats! I started tattooing my first cats a few years back and while I was in Montreal. I started to draw more and more and since people seem to like it I thought this is perfect, now I can make this my thing!

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What inspires you? My big inspiration is my own cat at the moment, I am completely crazy about her, she is my baby! Also sometimes I see funny cat pictures on my news feed that I use as reference.

What would you love to tattoo? I’d love to find someone who would get a full sleeve in a cat theme or a back piece, I want to make bigger pieces. I like doing palm size tattoos but sometimes I miss making bigger pieces, I feel like people think am not into that!

Do you have any guest spot or conventions planned? I’ll be the last week of July at Salon Serpent, few days at Jolie Rouge London in August and will come back to London in November for a week but haven’t figured it out yet.  As for conventions, I’ll be at Tox Cit Ink Liège (Belgium), Montreux tattoo convention (Switzerland) both in September, at Nantes tattoo convention in October and should be at Lisbon tattoo convention in December.

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Can you tell us about your own tattoos? My own tattoos are pretty much all about cats, I have many cat tattoos on myself. A few years back I said that the only thing I would get would be cat related and it has been like that since then, but as I have been running out of space this is header to do. I started getting tattooed when I was younger and some of then have been covered, blasted over and lasered, but some still remain unfortunately. The best tattoos I have are all hidden since I don’t show my legs that much anymore!

Cattoos

This post is definitely one for the crazy cat ladies and gentlemen, our guest blogger, fashion design and marketing student Phoebe Lloyd being one of them! Here for you viewing pleasure is a collection of her favourite inked felines from some incredible artists… 

@guendouglas

Guen Douglas

@1969tattoo

Dylan Kwok

@codyeichtattoo

Cody Eich

@amyvsavage

Amy Savage2

@sophiebaughan

Sophia Baughan

@abbydrielsmatattoo

Abby Drielsma

@abbiewilliamstattoo

Abbie Williams

@bintt

Chris Browning Bintt 2

@nicole_draeger

nicole

 

@raineisonfire

raine

@xinaxiii

xii

 

@s6girl

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Our Fruity issue cover star @jodydawber

Jody Dawber

Do you have a cat tattoo? Have we missed off some of your favourite artists?