News - Art Meets Flesh

Over many years, Clive's artwork has been adapted in a huge variety of ways and people have found ever-more-inventive ways to make use of it to sell, to inform and to decorate their wares (see the Art as Merchandise pages, here).
None of these incarnations, however, have anything like the unique and personal vitality achieved when ink meets flesh in the form of tattooed skin.

As with all media, tattoos of Clive's artwork have varied in style, in detail and in subject, but every photograph we've been sent has had its own charm, its own value and, most importantly, a true individuality. Occasionally, Clive has made unique designs for people, with detailed instructions to the artist tasked with translating the work from paper to skin.

Here, we're delighted to present perhaps the most carefully worked tattoo of Clive's art that we've ever seen. When Clive's nephew decided to take the plunge, he approached Jim Gambell at Ritual Art Tattoo (who also has a great Pinhead image in his portfolio) to take on the complex project, as Gareth explains...

Gareth: "I'd wanted a tattoo for a number of years but never knew what I wanted. I wanted it to be relevant to me and my life rather than just a piece I'd picked off a wall in a tattoo shop. I don't remember a time when I decided on exactly what I was going to try and accomplish with my tattoo or even how large it was going to be. One thing I do remember is setting up Clive's canvases in his gallery house a few years back and saying how much I loved the style of painting and that they would probably work quite well as tattoos because of their colour and the use of dark outlines around a lot of the artwork. That week I started re-reading Abarat 2 after conversation with Clive about how book 3 was coming along. That gave me the concept of making a piece using the artwork he had painted for the first 2 books. My favourite painting has to be the 3 women in the red boat with the huge purple storm cloud behind. This became the starting point of my tattoo idea and because of the breaking waves it seemed a natural progression that this could become an underwater piece and incorporate many of the images in the second book, including possibly my second favourite piece depicting the traffic light and fish.

"I spent over a year trying to find an artist I thought was capable of replicating Clive's style of painting and when someone recommended Jim as someone who could deal well with large scale, colour, fantasy pieces I got in touch. I was thrilled when he said he was up for the challenge. The piece took about 6 months and around 8, 7 hour sessions to complete and it was a fascinating experience being able to sit and watch an artist in action. Jim put his own twist on the piece and I think this pulls the whole tattoo together and makes the sleeve feel complete. He also has his own fish in there too!

"The reaction I get is mostly, 'Oh, I wouldn't expect you to have a sleeve,' but apart from that almost all comments are complimentary and I notice people on the tube or bus trying to figure out what it is. However the people who know the paintings or have read the books are blown away by the amount of detail and how close they are to the originals.

"For my next piece, I'd love to get the dust-cover image from the hardback first edition of The Thief Of Always, a painting I've had on my wall since the book came out, on my back. I'm also thinking about what could go on the other arm, maybe a collection of images from books 3, 4 and 5? One thing's for sure, Jim will get first refusal on whatever comes next after the incredible job he did on my sleeve."

Jim: "It was an exciting and fresh challenge taking on this piece. The original artwork of Clive's was unlike anything I had tattooed before. Although I had plenty of fish to choose from to create this sleeve, it didn't lend itself to being tattooed straight off. It needed some sort of framework to create the fit and flow needed for a full arm. This was my input, the organic bone type structure moving up the arm pulling it all together.

"The paintings are very loose, so to interpret them onto the skin accurately, I used very little outlining and concentrated on using mainly magnums (a collective needle type a bit like a flat paintbrush) which in tattooing is the closest you can get to painting.

"I do a lot of water themed tattoos so the colour palette used on this sleeve is very familiar to me. A wide range of blue with a little green here and there, lots of white for the foam of the wave. I use colour pigments in my tattoos as I would if I were painting generally. So to actually recreate the colour scheme that Clive used is totally possible, when mixing pigments in this way. I have a wide range of pigments that can be mixed to achieve a painterly effect. The cloud and the boat were to go at the top of the arm naturally and the rest under the water, so being as the sea was so rough I needed that to reflect in the water below, hence the bubbly swirly water under Gareth's arm. My favourite bit of the sleeve is on the inner forearm, the traffic light fish and the yellow puffer fish, with the upright of the traffic lights coming up from the wrist leading your eye up through the arm.

"One of the last sessions we did was the large bubble and Gareth's outer wrist. This was being saved for a fish. This was my own fish drawn in Clive's style (a crazy fish!). This sleeve was great fun to do and has been one of the quickest sleeves I have completed. I would love to do more work like this, maybe an insect theme next time, so if you were looking for more ideas Clive, think insects!!"