My studio is located near the Arts District in Los Angeles. It’s an art loft — a combined living and working space inside a warehouse converted back in the late ’80s. The year leading up to finding this place had been a whirlwind of change, and the moment I walked in and saw the sun blazing through the industrial windows, I knew that it was where I wanted my place of work to be.
When I moved to LA from Glasgow, I was on a tight budget, but over time the space slowly filled with furniture, books, and art materials. It’s amazing what people will just give away in a warehouse that’s full of artists.
The high ceilings were what I fell in love with immediately. There is something about working in a large space allows me to just think bigger. Maybe it comes from my background painting large-scale murals, but I’ve always loved a huge wall.
We have a communal pool and jacuzzi outside, so after a long day of work I like to go for a swim and meditate after. I love the bay window, but I do live on the ground floor in an industrial part of Downtown LA, so there’s always chaos on the street!
One time someone crashed a stolen Kia and set it on fire right outside; when the smoke cleared I photographed the whole interior, the plastic melted over mechanical parts makes for an incredible texture reference!
The perfect drawing day starts early: some quick yoga and light exercise as the sun rises into the studio, just to keep my back and neck moving. Long tattoo sessions are taxing on the body, so exercise is essential.
Once my body and mind are fully awake, I’ll warm up with gestural figure studies before moving into project work.
My collection of mechanical pencils and pens is the heart of my drawing practice. My favourite is the limited-edition reissue of the Platinum Hayakawa Continuous Twist Mechanical Pencil that I stumbled across in Tokyo. It’s the most beautiful pencil I’ve ever held. I’ve managed to drop it on the hard concrete floor three times and, amazingly, it still works.
A lot of my tattoo work right now is inspired by Soulsborne games like Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne. I use each project as an opportunity to expand my visual library, breaking down characters and redrawing them in different poses.
All of my tattoo projects are drawn directly onto the body with markers before tattooing, as it helps me to understand the character well so I can draw more intuitively in the moment, rather than relying on reference material during the session.
In the afternoons, I’ll usually edit tattoo photos and video footage to post online.
I use a Huion tablet to blow up my thumbnail sketches and refine them before tattoo appointments. I recently got a TourBox, which has been an awesome addition to my setup.
I live right by the Flower District, so I like to rotate different colour schemes and interesting floral arrangements to keep the place feeling fresh. This week it’s thistles to remind me of home.
I also work a lot better if I can distract half of my brain with some form of storytelling, so I listen to audiobooks a lot, and I like to binge watch shows on my iPad while I work. I use this as an ADHD hack – I’ll set drawing tasks to 15 minutes at a time to keep things moving using my blue sand timer.
I’m currently building towards a balance between tattoo work and personal work. For the past few years I’ve been fully focused and drawing for my tattoo practice in this studio, but I hope to create a series of charcoal works incorporating all I’ve learned from tattoo projects into my own vision.
Having lots of wall space allows me to spread out all my recent sketches, keeping me connected to my ongoing inner dialogue of ideas.
These are the sketchbooks I’ve filled in my three years in LA. For convenience and ease of storage, I recently switched over to a ring binder system. Now I draw on loose sheets, then punch holes in them to store in this massive binder, which means I can sift through all my sketches in chronological order.
The art display above my digital painting setup has been growing over time and features some artists I admire.
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