Grantham tattoo artist launches pet portrait business

Published: 15:50, 08 March 2021

A Grantham tattoo artist has launched her own pet portrait business after being on furlough for the past year.

Isobel Ashwin, of Goodliff Road, Grantham, has worked at the Natural Selection tattoo studio, on Huntingtower Road, for six years.

But with all tattoo shops currently closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Isobel has used the free time to indulge in her passion for drawing.

The 24-year-old said: “I have always had a passion for art and for drawing and I have drawn pictures of people’s pets since I was a teenager. When I was 18 I became a tattoo artist. Unfortunately this meant that I had less time to draw, however I still occasionally took on commissioned work. However, due to coronavirus, from March 2020 I was no longer allowed to tattoo due to the lockdowns and non-essential businesses being forced to close.

“Now that I was no longer tattooing, I suddenly had a lot of free time on my hands. It was the perfect opportunity for me to invest more time into drawing pet portraits.”

Isobel mainly creates commissioned work of people’s pets as well as original drawings of animals and wildlife.

But since lockdown, her small pet portrait business has really taken off.

She added: “Drawing pet portraits is a huge passion of mine. I absolutely love the reactions that I receive from my customers when I send them across photos of the final drawing before I post it to them.

“I have taken little steps that I am proud of, such as having my own professional website which includes all of my information about commissioning a portrait as well as selling fine art prints of my own drawings.

“I also recently purchased a good quality printer and learned how to produce my own fine art prints of my own drawings which was also a big step.”