A Tattoo Artist's Blog: Everybody I Tattooed in June & July 2026

This post is part of my Summer Round Up.
Want to see what else I've been up to this summer? Read my Summer Round Up here.

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June and July were a bit of a whirlwind in the studio! I've been so busy tattooing that my monthly round-up newsletters have, well... fallen a little behind 😂. So rather than trying to squeeze three months of tattoos into one enormous newsletter, I thought I'd pop June & July's tattoos into this one, and then have separate 'Summer Round Up'.

And there have been a lot of tattoos to catch up on. This summer I've been working on everything from floral sleeves and botanical tattoos to cover-ups, blast-overs and meaningful family tattoos. There have also been lots of ongoing projects, which I always love. There's something so satisfying about watching a tattoo develop over multiple sessions, especially when we can take our time getting the design, placement and flow just right.

So, here's a little look at what I've been tattooing in my Toronto tattoo studio over the last couple of months. 🖤

Tattoos I Made in June...

Kat // Snake & Florals

It was so lovely to see Kat again after a few years! She wanted to extend her existing shoulder tattoo, but with lighter flowers and more negative space this time, as well as adding a snake that wraps through an existing tattoo on her tricep. We also added a skull to her inner arm.

I really love how this one brings the different elements together while still leaving plenty of breathing room. It's always fun working with an existing tattoo and finding a way to make the new piece feel like it belongs there. 🖤

Check out more photos on my IG.

Sasha // Cedar Branch & Botanical Tattoo

Sasha wanted a tattoo to remind her of BC, incorporating a cedar branch and some very specific flower species that were meaningful to her.

I loved putting all of these elements together and figuring out how they could work as one flowing botanical tattoo. The wrap is especially pretty in person.

You can see more photos over on my Instagram. 🌿

Patrice // Floral Skull Tattoo

How epic is Patrice's new skull tattoo?!

I love getting to work on pieces that combine my usual floral and botanical style with slightly darker subject matter. We surrounded the skull with eucalyptus, dahlia and mistletoe, creating a piece that's feminine and a little macabre at the same time.

We incorporated this into a tattoo I did for her six years ago! I absolutely love being able to see how my blackwork and fine line tattoos settle over time. 🖤

Wanita // Floral Sleeve Tattoo

Wanita and I continued building her floral sleeve in June, adding more beautiful botanical details to her healed linework.

I love how this sleeve is coming together, lots of movement, flow and negative space working with the shape of her arm rather than simply filling it up. We're planning on eventually bringing this down her back, to the butt / lower back piece I've done for her. I can't wait to blend this lighter style with the bolder look.

And I got this super cute shot of her spider tattoo healed. I love how it just shows below her skirt 🖤.

Maddie // Healed Floral Sleeve Tattoo

I was so happy to see Maddie this summer and add to her sleeve. I tattooed her upper arm last summer, with the intention of extending it into a full sleeve. We tried to keep the piece looking fairly complete. She has to travel a long way to get tattooed by me, and I didn't want her tattoo to feel unfinished between sessions.

You can see more photos of this one in this post.

Chanel // Pothos Botanical Tattoo

I loved creating this pothos tattoo for Chanel. 🌿. I actually made an Instagram post that shows the whole design process, from sketch to final tattoo design. You can check that out here if you want 🙂.

We tried to keep her pothos tattoo as botanically accurate as we could, including emerging leaves and the nodes on the stems. But also use the leaves, pot and flowing stems give it a lovely shape while keeping that black and grey botanical feel I love.

I think we succeeded...

Taisia // Healed Scar Cover-Up Tattoo

I got to see Taisia's scar cover-up all beautifully healed and settled in!

This is one of the reasons I love doing what I do. Tattoos that help someone feel differently about their body are incredibly meaningful to me, and I'm always so honoured when someone trusts me with something as personal as a scar cover-up.

Seeing this one healed was such a lovely moment. 🥰.

Stacy // Floral Backpiece

Ya'll probably have heard me talk about Stacy my best friend and studio partner before. 

We don't often get the chance to align our work schedules to have time for tattooing, but I'm so happy I got to finish her backpiece this June (for now).

The bottom flower is about a year healed and is also a cover up! I especially love seeing how all those details settle into the skin over time.

Christine // Peony Tattoo

A beautiful peony tattoo for Christine. 🌸

Peonies are obviously a bit of a staple in my work, but I never get bored of tattooing them. Changing the size, shape, placement and surrounding elements means they can look completely different from one person to the next.

I love how this one sits on Christine's body. The flow is so beautiful.

Wendy // Alstroemeria Floral Tattoo

Wendy chose one of my practice pieces! I wanted to tattoo an alstroemeria from my sketchbook with more delicate greywash than I usually use in my tattoo work. 

Here's the fresh tattoo alongside the two-week healed version, I'll get updates how this grey-wash holds up over time 🙂.

I also got to snap a photo of her thigh tattoo from 3.5 years ago!

Lindsay // Blackwork Cover-Up Tattoo

This was such a fun transformation for Lindsay!

She had a tattoo of a world map that she no longer loved. It was VERY heavily done. Luckily Lindsay's a big fan of my heavier blackwork, so we decided the best way of covering would be to with a solid black background and new florals in the clear areas of skin. I forgot to take before photos, until I had already outlined some of the flowers, but you can get an idea of what I was working with below. 

Cover-ups always require a bit more problem-solving than a fresh tattoo because we're working with what's already there, but that's part of what makes them so satisfying. 🖤

I also got to check out her leg panel over three years settled in. I love it so much!

Sam // Snake & Skull Tattoo

Sam is very thoughtful with her tattoos. She has two beautiful colour pieces, by another artist, one of a sparrowhawk, and the other a snake. She wanted to balance and echo these pieces with skeletons of each of these animals with my blackwork florals. I really love how this project has developed over time. We did the sparrowhawk skull a year ago on her upper arm, and this summer we added the snake skeleton on her thigh.

So much fun...

Roy // Cover-Up Tattoo — Second Session

Another session on Roy's leg cover-up project!

This has been a really fun one to work on because we're taking existing tattoos and transforming them into something completely new. Cover-up work takes a fair bit of planning, but I love the challenge of figuring out how to use the existing shapes to our advantage.

I'll show this one off in full once it's fully completed.

Roy // Rose & Floral Tattoo

Roy travels from NYC to get tattooed by me, so books several sittings in one week. On his second sitting we worked on another part of Roy's ongoing tattoo project, with this beautiful rose and botanical work.

I love how we incorporates his existing snail tattoo into this piece (you can just see it at the top of the tattoo in this photo)...

Roy // Cover-Up Tattoo

For his third sitting Roy asked me to tackle one of the trickiest cover ups I've even done. Unfortunately Roy does not react well to laser tattoo removal, and it left him with very bad scarring on this moth tattoo. Just to put it into perspective, his original moth was all black ink, the brown and red mottling you see in this photo is all scar tissue and hyperpigmentation.

It was actually Roy that suggested the idea of covering the moth with a bird, and it works so well. The feather patterns of the bird really helped with covering the mottling. Scar tissue does not like being tattooed, so it was initially very red and angry, as you can see.

Luckily Roy made another trip to see me in August so I'm able to show you the healed result, below. I'm so so happy with how we've been able to hide his original tattoo.

Tattoos I Made in July...

Wendy // Blackwork Blast-Over

Do you remember I tattooed Wendy in June? Well she also grabbed a cancellation in July!

Turns out she had a colour tattoo that she didn't love anymore, I've always wanted to do a blast-over, and I had a cancellation on her day off. Meant to be.

So we did this really fun blackwork blast-over, incorporating her existing colour tattoo underneath. I've always wanted to try working over a colour tattoo, and I love how the new blackwork changes the overall feel of the piece while allowing some of the original tattoo to still exist underneath.

Hannah // Peony Tattoo

I got to extend Hannah's floral sleeve in July! She wanted to fill the space left on her lower arm with a peony and more sunflowers. 

Peonies are one of my favourite flowers to work with because they give me so much to play with in terms of shape, texture and movement. I love creating floral tattoos that follow the body rather than feeling like they've simply been placed on top of it.

Kaitlyn // Peony Shoulder Cap

I tattooed Kaitlyn's other shoulder maaaany years ago, and she wanted to balance out that peony with another on the other shoulder. Somehow I forgot to take a photo of her healed tattoo during her session, which I'm so annoyed about, but I love her new tattoo.

Shoulder tattoos are such a lovely opportunity to work with the natural curve of the body, and I love the way this one wraps around her shoulder.

Megan // Floral Sleeve

Last year I did a cover up on Megan's lower arm, and she's decided she wants to extend it into a full sleeve!

In this session we added this fun combo of a lotus, snake and mandala, and I love how all the different pieces work together to create one cohesive sleeve.

We wanted to make sure the addition made sense between sessions, and didn't feel like a half-done tattoo. So we only added what we could complete in the time we had, and I think it works great. 

Cheyenne // Skunk Tattoo

Okay, I absolutely loved tattooing this little skunk for Cheyenne. 🦨

We've been building up her collection of desert animals and flowers over the last little while (check out her healed quail and bougainvillea tattoo below). So this striped skunk and prickly pear cactus flower combo had to happen.

This is definitely one of those tattoos that makes me smile every time I look at it.

Simran // Iris & Dagger Tattoo

So, you all probably remember Simran's epic leg tattoo (healed photos below), right?

Well she grabbed a cancellation in July and we did this whole new project on her other leg!

I sent out this design as a rough idea in my newsletter, and she loved the concept. So we chagend up the flower to an iris (which I love) and freehanded the flowing linework.

I love working with floral tattoos that have a slightly darker or unexpected element alongside them. The movement of the flowers gives this piece such a lovely flow, while the dagger adds a completely different energy.

Karen // Clock Tattoo

I've tattooed Karen at the around the same time each year for the last three years now! It's our annual tattoo date 😂. The pieces we've added to her arm are all subtle nods to her love of Alice in Wonderland. I love getting to work on meaningful tattoos like this and finding ways to give them the same attention to composition and detail that I bring to my floral work.

Karen's skin is extremely sensitive, so I've reduced the saturation in the photo of her new tattoo. But I have unedited photos of her other healed tattoos to share too.

I love sharing these because they are such a good reminder that a tattoo isn't finished when you leave the studio. It continues to settle and become part of you over time.

These are a lovely look at how Karen's tattoos have aged...

Anne // Narwhal & Floral Tattoo

How cute is Anne's new narwhal tattoo?! It flows with the whale tattoo we did four years ago! I've included a healed photo below.

Anne was so sweet, and gifted me a copy of her book The Sound of Ice Cracking!! I've not had chance to read it yet, but I'm so excited to. She also sat so well, this is such a sensitive spot to get tattooed, she did so well!

Also how cool is her Thelma and Louise tattoo! (not by me obvs)

Jacky // Turtle & Water Lily Tattoo

I tattooed Jacky six months ago with her first tattoo, and she deicded to add a sea turtle and more delphinium and water lily to fill her lower arm! 

I really enjoyed bringing these elements together, particularly the way the water lily and delphinium work around the turtle to create a tattoo that feels like one cohesive piece. So cute!

Nicki // Healed Floral Tattoo

And finally, another tattoo extension, this time for Nicki! 

We tattooed the original piece 3.5 years ago, and she wanted to extend it. When we were designing her tattoo we talked about how it feels like spell for self-love and confidence to her, and I love that idea sooo much.

In this addition we incorporated some of her most loved things, like the t-rex and paintbrushes (she's an art teacher), and also some really cool poisonous flowers, henbane and belladonna. And we're planning on extending it further at some point (there maybe some foxgloves in the future!).

Interested in getting tattooed?

If you're looking for a custom floral, botanical or blackwork tattoo in Toronto, I'd love for you to take a look through my portfolio and see whether my style feels like the right fit for you.

I work from my private Toronto tattoo studio and specialise in creating custom tattoos that are designed specifically for the person wearing them. I particularly love large-scale floral tattoos, botanical blackwork, and tattoos that have a personal meaning behind them.

You can find out more about my tattoo design process and booking on my website. 🖤

Lu

Ps. Read more monthly tattoo recaps:

• March Tattoo Recap
• February Tattoo Recap
• January Tattoo Recap