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What’s New in March

As things pickup slowly with the nicer weather, we’re here to make your tattoo wishes become reality. Be it realism, watercolor, hand-poke, or anything in between, you can count on us for the most stunning living artwork around.

In March, every Friday and Saturday we’re featuring our hand-poke artist Kristina who still has some spots available. If you’ve never had a traditional hand-poke tattoo, this is your opportunity. Just reply to this email or call our tattoo studio anytime.

We’re also excited to start giving our Burlington apprentice Hanna more skin to play with. Her few tattoos so far have been absolutely stunning, we’ll be featuring some of her designs for free tattoo giveaways later this month. Her progress so far has been absolutely remarkable, we’re so excited to have her join us for the summer on a more full time basis as she perfects her already impressive skills.

We have big news about our line of natural soap and various products. We’re re-branding our entire catalog to Painted People Soap!

While Soapy Penguin will remain, we will be re-introducing it as a separate line of natural products in the future. For now, we wanted to further highlight that we do make all of the amazing products we sell from our shops and having a unified name just felt right.

We’re still on the looking for a new tattoo artist to join our Toronto family. We’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, Anita, who has quickly become a staple of Burlington artists, will continue to tattoo out of the Toronto location each Wednesday. She has a few openings available, so if you can’t make it to Burlington feel free to give us a call or email.

Finally, we were proud to celebrate having our 2000th client tattooed this past weekend. It still feels surreal to us, having opened the Toronto shop some 3+ years ago we’d be at this point. As one of our clients, no, members of our extended family, we want to say thank you! Thank you for sharing your love of art with us. Thank you for trusting us with something so intimate and personal.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, we of course would greatly appreciate your feedback and support for our Toronto or Burlington tattoo shops.

Thank you!

Let’s Keep In Touch

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Painted People Tattoo Company 2023 , All Rights Reserved

Marketing and Website Design Rwp Media Group

  • (416) 551-2233 (Toronto)
  • (905) 637-7277 (Burlington)

Estimates/Booking

Use the form below to describe your vision for the tattoo or to request a consultation / booking. If looking for an estimate, please be descriptive. For bookings, review our pricing & payment page; we typically start with a free consultation for larger work; Note that custom drawings or to have a confirmed appointment, a deposit will be requested; Last, but not least, remember to check your junk / spam email folder in case you don’t hear from us within 3 days.

Hugh

ABOUT HUGH

We’re thrilled to welcome Hugh, who is a seasoned professional tattoo artist of over 10 years, to our North York tattoo studio starting in December.

Hugh’s artwork speaks for itself. As someone that does stunning traditional tattoos, we quickly bonded with him based on his passion of art and general outlook on life. We’re confident his personality is a great mesh for our studio and all of our clients.  

Reach out to Hugh via justhughsteele@gmail.com or stop by our Toronto tattoo studio any Tuesday to Saturday to say hi.

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Rebecca

ABOUT REBECCA

Rebecca is a natural artist quickly honing in her skills as an apprentice in our Toronto studio. From a very young age, Rebecca has enjoyed all forms of art ranging from film and animation to painting and illustrations.

Similar to her mentor, Ashley, Rebecca describes herself as an introverted individual who’s confidence and expression comes out in her work, and, in her ever changing hair color.Rebecca has an interesting outlook on getting tattoos, seeing them parable to decorating one’s home. Rebecca, who relates to being shy and feeling awkward, feels a sense of empowerment from decorating your own space. She wants to help others in their own quests for empowerment while flexing her artistic abilities.

The tattoo styles she’s most interested in are blackwork, pointillism, and Japanese traditional flowers. Rebecca loves to continuously grow and learn new art styles, and is always seeking available canvases to practice her craft. Reach out to her via her Instagram or stop by our Toronto studio any Tuesday, Friday or Saturday to say hi.

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Gel

ABOUT GEL

Gelene (or Gel), as many natural born artists tend to do, has been creating art since a child. Her work ranged from drawings to illustrations and led her to acquire an Advanced Diploma in Media Arts from Sheridan College in Oakville. Originally from Manila, Philippines, she moved around with her family during most of her youth, also having lived in Jakarta, Indonesia before moving and building roots in Toronto, Canada.

As a tattoo artist, she enjoys different types of styles though her favourite is abstract especially when it’s a fusion of different cultures. She loves doing custom work most especially when the client is open to a collaborative rapport. She’s here not just to put ink onto your skin but to help you express yourself in various ways that are unique to your worldviews, personalities, and experiences. She feels privileged in being able to be part of an anthropological alchemy that has started since the dawn of time; if we look at the grander scheme of the process, the alchemy really comes into play when clients come to us with very personal matters that they want to express through their tattoo(s).

Gel is a scuba diver and hiker who loves checking out arts & culture as she travels. Locally, she hits the gym, does hot yoga, and practices Krav Maga martial arts.

Gel is available for bookings in our North York studio mainly Saturdays and Sundays. Feel free to reach her via email or check out her profile below

 

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Brooke

ABOUT BROOKE

Brooke is a “new” artist in every sense of the word – she redefines what a tattoo artist might look like. Not to say that there is such a thing as a certain “tattoo artist look” since we’re all unique, and proudly carry our own style and character; however, Brooke redefines many things.

Our young artist got involved in art at the tender age of 3 when she started doodling. This may be so for many of us, but what separates Brooke from others is when, at the at of 16, she took doodling to the next level and started working part time at a tattoo studio in order to study from other artists.

She was trained at doing piercings by the age of 18, but after realizing that her true passion was in drawing and expressing herself via permanent art, Brooke changed paths to become a tattoo artist. Now, Brooke has been under our wing for a number of years, first as an apprentice being trained by her figuratively adopted mother Asia, and we’re proud to see her grow into a very capable tattoo artist today!

Brooke can be unassuming. The 5”1, quiet, attractive and very focused artist frequently agonizes over producing the most amazing work – a trait that is often attached to perfectionists. With over a thousand of tattoos under her belt and extensive training on safety and cleanliness handling, it’s very easy to forget that Brooke is still early in her career. Brooke has long moved away from script and simpler tattoos towards inventing her own tattoo style. Specializing in floral and general minimalist tattoos, we’re super proud to see where Brooke’s already impressive artist career takes her next.

NEO TRADITIONAL TATTOOS

Brooke is interested in pursuing neo-traditional tattoos (neo means new in Latin). The dictionary would define it as “A re-adoption or revival of traditional styles, values, practices, etc.”, while we see it as taking the traditional old-style tattoo art that has been around for over a hundred years (think American and sailors) and fusing it with new concepts.

Neo-traditional tattoos are still traditional in essence, but what separates them from old-school traditional tattoos is moving away from thick, broad lines, and instead, delve more into realism. Additionally, they may take the traditional subject of a skull head, for example, draw it in a similar traditional fashion, but then add flowers, colors and smoother lines to the tattoo, making it a neo-traditional tattoo as it blends multiple styles together.

It’s no surprise that Brooke is most drawn to this tattoo style because she embodies new tradition, and we couldn’t be more excited to see her grow further in her artist’s journey. Check out some of her work below and stop by our tattoo studio to meet her. We proudly feature some of her work on our tattoo shop walls in Toronto where she apprenticed originally before helping us establish the Burlington studio where she now tattoos from exclusively.

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10% Off Booking

Use the form below to describe your vision for the tattoo, or to request a consultation / booking.
For Estimates, click here

Asia

ABOUT ASIA

Asia, pronounced like Asha rather than like the continent, is the head artist and proud co-Owner of Toronto’s Painted People Tattoos Salon.

Asia has been tattooing for over 15 years. Her rich resume, apart from owning a tattoo studio, includes roles such as painter, volunteer, designer, music dabbler, and more. Finding her calling at the age of 16, she studied tattooing, first independently, and then as an apprentice to a number of celebrated artists before becoming one herself.

Tattooing is a passion for Asia. She loves creating livable, permanent art through that passion. When she’s not creating, Asia enjoys carrying for her pets, spending time with her family, watching movies, playing old video games, sucking at soccer (or football if we’re being all European) and unloading cat sounds with her husband Nick for general amusement of herself and others.

WATERCOLOR TATTOOS

As the name indicates, watercolor tattoos essentially represent using the human canvas and drawing on them with tattoo ink making them look like watercolors.

Watercolor tattoos require the same expertise and initial process that other tattoo techniques require (you may or may not do a stencil and mix shades of color), but where they really separate themselves from other tattoo techniques is the final outcome. A fresh watercolor tattoo can often appear as splashes of watercolor paint on your body.

Created with a lot more gradual coloring (unlike, for example, traditional tattooing where solid colors are merged together), the subtle gradients help create the characteristics and design of a classic watercolor painting. The other differentiating factor is outlining. Watercolor tattoos pride themselves on often not having a solid outline which is then colored in. The free flowing colors are meant to represent a painting – which they most definitely do.

Asia, while doing every style from black and grey, traditional, tribal, realism, neo-traditional, new school, etc, has really specialized in watercolor tattooing recently. Outside of loving the look and feel of them and genuinely enjoying creating unique watercolor designs, she is quickly becoming known Canada wide for her passion of watercolor tattoos.

One of the common misconceptions around watercolor tattoos is that they fade very quickly. Putting it simply, all tattoos fade overtime. In the hands of a professional tattoo artist (such as Asia), watercolor tattoos are safe from fading for years. How many years heavily depends on various factors such as maintenance of the tattoo / skin care along with placement of tattoo as not placing it on an area where there may be constant rubbing will make it last longer. Watercolor tattoos can fade just slightly quicker due to use of lighter colors, so if one of our tattoos does start to fade you can come back after a few years for a quick touch-up to get it looking vibrant again.

For tips on how to maintain your watercolor or any other tattoos, check out our healing instructions page here

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