A tribute to my recovery

This design will be going on my right arm, on the inside of the arm. The circle and triangle will be on the inside of my wrist, and the flames and smoke will undulate up my arm, and swirl around the elbow. It is designed to fit perfectly together with the tattoo I recently had done as a memorial for my Brother John. This is particularly poignant for me, as my Brother was killed by his hopeless addiction to alcohol and drugs, and this tattoo represents my freedom from addiction to alcohol and drugs.....there IS hope!

This is a very rough idea of what it might look like. I just did a quick comp in photoshop, the image is not properly wrapped around my arm.

A new tattoo design for my friend Phil...

My dear friend Phil asked me to design a tattoo for his shoulder, of a beautiful Native American woman with a wolf. This is what I came up with. Damn, it is incredibly hard for me to draw women really well.To truly capture beauty in a drawing is extremely difficult, I can only imagine it is that much harder with a tattoo gun. Perhaps that is why so many female faces I see in tattoo work are often a little bit weird looking. Only the very finest tattoo work I have seen captures the true essence of female beauty that I am trying to portray with this tattoo design.....Hope you like it Phil, and make sure you get it done by the very best!

Getting a tattoo for my Brother John

When asking for advice as to how to get 'in' to the tattoo business, one of the first things they told me is to GET TATTOOS, with a tattoo artist whose work you admire. So I approached Dave Nicholson, an amazing tattoo artist who works for the world famous Dutchman Tattoos in Vancouver. (New WestMinster) I had come up with a preliminary design for a tattoo for my brother, that would cover my entire right forearm. I let Dave go with the flow and design it the way he wants. He is an amazing artist, and he draws and designs right on the skin, rather than just tracing a design he has done before hand. This is the tattoo so far....

This tattoo is a memorial for my dear brother John, who passed away in February at the young age of 53 years old. It bears the inscription 'Fly On Brother'....lyrics from a song I wrote for him many years ago.


Sitting and watching Dave work on my forearm, is a fantastic way to learn. He works much faster than anyone else I have watched, actually drawing with the tattoo gun, really stroking the lines with finesse. I ask lots of questions. Dave likes the idea of me getting into the business, and I am hopeful that an apprenticeship is in the offing somewhere down the line.....

This is a drawing I did as a preliminary idea for another tattoo for Scott. He asked for a "Winged Unicorn with Zebra stripes, with a warrior woman with a sword (and she has tiger stripes on her body ) fighting a dragon!" Quite a tall order! Well, no stripes so far......but not too bad for a first stab at it.