TRISTAN VEZINA

“

I PREFER MY ART AND TATTOOS TO BE POSITIVE OR NOSTALGIC ”

Derek has been drawing since childhood and started painting in his early teens. He began airbrushing and acrylic painting seriously at 18, whilst starting a tattoo career. In his early 20s, he apprenticed under Crosseyed Airbrushing, learning the finer points of the artform on motorcycle and steel. From here, he has applied a lot of these techniques to canvas mixed with brush acrylic. Since then, projects have become larger and more time demanding. These days Derek works on a few large projects and commissions a year. Also, he is the owner of Electric Grizzly Tattoos, a custom tattoo shop with his friends, in Canmore, Alberta. He resides in this Canadian Rockies paradise with his family ⸺ What would you say is your favorite part of the job? I love creating cool and dynamic tattoos, also working with the people I have gotten to know over the years, the traveling it lets us do, the people, and clients, and friendships from tattooing, meeting a lot of like-minded people, and overall grateful for the lifestyle it has given us ⸺ Are there any tattoos you would refuse to do? (face, private areas, etc.) I generally just take on comic tattoos or pop culture/wildlife; I usually don’t do anything hateful or super negative; I prefer my art and tattoos to be positive or nostalgic ⸺ Have you ever had a bad tattooing experience, and what was it? Almost all of my experiences in tattooing have been super positive; I would just say the learning process and starting out was definitely a struggle to stick with it and get through the steep learning curve, especially with the older equipment and homemade needles we started with back in the day ⸺ What is the most important advice you can give someone new to the art of tattooing?

I would say just focus on your art and style as much as possible, practice, and work as hard as possible; it’s an industry that you get out what you put in, so it won’t happen easily, but there are awesome possibilities and opportunities in tattooing ⸺ What is your most favorite recent tattoo? One of the more unique and favorite tattoos recently was a nickelodeon leg tattoo from earlier in the year ⸺ What other art do you do? I airbrush and acrylic paint as much as possible; for landscapes, I like to use brush paint and airbrushing. ✕