Ed Sheeran lion tattoo art goes on sale

Kevin Paul hopes the artwork will sell for about £10,000 through an online auction

The original artwork for Ed Sheeran's lion tattoo has gone on sale to raise money for the rehabilitation of prisoners.

Tattooist Kevin Paul, 47, from Melbourne in Derbyshire, said he created the drawing the night before tattooing the lion on the singer's chest in 2015.

He said he aimed to sell the artwork for about £10,000 through an online auction site and wanted to use the money raised to help prisoners create and sell their own artwork to help turn their lives around.

"I've been spending time in prisons and I've found there's a big gap in the rehabilitation that they're doing and when they [inmates] come out of prison," Mr Paul said.

Mr Paul said Ed Sheeran's lion tattoo was one of his most famous and "took over the internet".

"We were looking at ideas to show that he'd sold out Wembley and a lot of things at Wembley were about the lion.

"He told me his favourite place was Africa. We wanted to create a piece of art that looked like an African painting but was based on a lion.

"The next morning, we created [the tattoo] and it took over the world. Everywhere I went, people were talking about it," he said.

Mr Paul said the original artwork was due to go on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London before Covid happened and was eventually donated to the Royal Derby Hospital, where it was displayed for two years.

Kevin Paul created the tattoo to commemorate Ed Sheeran selling out Wembley Stadium

He said he was inspired to help prisoners as he know how it feels to have a hard start in life.

"I started off life in a poor family. I had no education, I got kicked out of school when I was young.

"I know how it feels to be classed as a negative, where people look down on you. I managed to build myself out of that into something better.

"I believe anyone can do that. I just want to be that person that pushes them [prisoners] into that right door," Mr Paul said.

Creative projects

The artist said he wanted to create a website to display and sell art created by prisoners and also run courses in prison teaching art and tattooing.

"They can make woodwork in a prison now and it's being sold for a couple of pounds and it's not giving them any drive to pursue this as a career.

"I want to get them making higher end stuff in there," Mr Paul said.

He said he also wanted to help inmates with other creative projects.

"There's a lot of them in there that write books about their life, about the mistakes that they've made and things they've gone through.

"I think if I could self-publish their books and poems and put them on the website, it'd give them a great platform to see that there's a better future other than crime."