From the category archives:

Ancient Skin Art

One Real Reason for Skin Art. What is Under Your Ink?

For A Limited Time Chopper Tattoos Is Giving Away Free Music Downloads For Trying The Site! Check It Out By Clicking HERE!

For some people there is much speculation as to why anyone would get tattooed. Some of that curiosity is due to a few religions, I won’t name them, but a few of them do believe that it is actually a sacrilegious act. Though I think even the most quiet of us would freely protest if someone accused us getting a piece of art solely for a sacrilegious reason, we do however all admit that getting a tattoo is sort of an outlaw thing to do still. Sure, you can deny that if you want, but in my already short lifetime, I’d have to fairly guess that 90% of the people I’ve watched get inked have been thumbing their nose at SOMEONES rule by doing so.

I’ve watched a grieving mother pay a couple thousand dollars to have a picture created by a professional FBI sketch artist turn her son who died so young into the man he would have been and tattoo that face on her back. Than again, I’ve also watched immature boys in men’s bodies have swastikas and symbols of true hate and ferocity their young blood selves could never really understand, emblazoned upon themselves in permanent ink, even much to the artist dismay at times.

After one particularly nasty client I remember turning to my friend and mentor Matty and asking, “Why would someone do that?” A guy who was 21 at the most, military of all things, came into the shop and had a hitler (no I didn’t typo, I just won’t cap it) and a swastika tattooed on his shoulder. After he left and I asked my question and Matty turned to me and replied thoughtfully. I believe I was around 16 at the time.

“Do you know why people get tattoos?”

Since I had just conned another artist in the shop to give me my first one (without permission of my mother or Matty) and seen hundreds done by then, I felt expert when I said yes I do.

Matty scrunched his face up and kind of smiled when he said, “Do you mean what you can see? Or what is under the ink that even causes it to be created in the first place?”

I won’t lie, I was 16, I did get pretty tired of his melancholy old man stories, how I referred to them even to him, but I knew he never wasted his time talking about unimportant things. I had literally spent days where I would come in at the start of his shift, sit in a chair behind him while he worked, and in 8 or 10 hours the most we spoke was the, whats up, when I walked in. And then he told me.

What is Under Your Ink?

Matty shared with me many stories of the many tattoos he had refused early on in his career. He didn’t tattoo hate messages or symbols, he didn’t tattoo the abusive husbands name on a woman who was clearly being ordered to submit to it. He knew the husband may have taken her elsewhere, may even had beaten her for his refusal to ink her, and he was sorry for that, but he was afraid to sell his soul he said. As he rambled on in my teenage fed up kind of way I asked him, “And my actual question was why the marine guy would ink it, not why you didn’t used to. So why do you now?”

He shared with me that the sad day came when he began to notice a distinct pattern. He didn’t like classifying people, and he sure as hell wasn’t the profiling type. Matty himself was an example of someones opinion of man gone wrong I’m sure of it. But he said he wasn’t judging them for their ink, it was their souls that were tainted or tortured and twisted somehow. He explained to me how someones skin art is an extension of their true selves. That was why we couldn’t always look at a guy or gals tattoo and figure out what the hell it was or what it meant.

He explained that he had inked people with whimsical souls who loved to get cartoons and quirky tattoos, he said those people were the ones we knew who forever remained children at heart. Who never forgot to play, get dirty or get down on one knee when talking to a kid.

He said he had always felt his own heart strings tug as he was inevitably shared the story of a grieving person having a rest in peace tattoo inked. But he also said that those people were the wise men and women on this earth. That their lot in life was often to be sure theirs or other loved ones memories were never sullied or dishonored. They remembered the lessons behind their deaths too and shared them, that was the most important duty they had.

And then he explained the followers, because it was those who he shared the biggest concern for and fear of. He said he thought he had tattooed leaders before, gang leaders, leaders of companies, leaders of immense responsibilities. And for the most part those guys and gals weren’t disturbing deep down. Egotistical, maybe, but not incredibly frightening or even intimidating people. But their followers, those who came in for their appointed gang symbol, those who came in to get someone else’s idea of right or wrong, good or bad printed on them, seemed the most lost souls of all.

Well hell, I can’t lie, I may have been listening to his ramblings but all this convo from a one word per day guy was a little much even for me. So I asked again, “So what does this have to freakin do with me asking why someone would get a tattoo like that.”

He said, “I dunno kid, just shut the hell up and listen, what I’m tryin to tell ya is to not worry your head over what under that guys ink, you just worry about whats under your own.”

Damn I was so mad!

And I actually counted after that, it was another four days after that convo that he asked me to ‘hand him a paper towel’ which was a lot of extra words for him already.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Feminine Tattoos – Sensual Art

Some women shy away from the more feminine tattoos but there are many great reasons to take notice of them these days. Artist have begun to differentiate between areas specifically great spots for men to get inked and have apparently found some more innovative ways to ink women that can help accentuate many features. A few of my favorite feminine tattoos are below. This may be considered rated R to some I suppose.

Yep quite sure this was very painful. Not that it isn’t innovative in a female aspect, but not something I’d consider.

I think the tattoo on this girls side flows awesome with the line of her body. Sexy tattoo just because of placement.

Love this too, something always sensual about the line of the spine itself.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Polynesian Skin Art – Art from the Isles

In the 1800′s European artist began returning from visits to the South Pacific with sketches of the copperline engravings or tattoos, that the native Polynesian Islanders adorned themselves with. Indeed, Queen Kamamalu herself had a tattoo put onto her tongue to show her deep and lasting grief when her mother in law died in the early 1800′s. As a missionary at that time, William Ellis watched as the procedure was performed. He commented to her that it looked to him that she should be in great pain. To this the queen replied “He eha nui no, he nui roa ra ku‘u aroha” or Great pain indeed, greater is my affection.

Some of the earliest European explorers to the islands found that both men and women of these tropical paradises wore tattoos for a wide variety of reasons. They learned that although some of the tattoos were purely decorative but also found that some of the men were heavily tattooed on only one side of their bodies. An explorer wrote that they looked like men who had been half burnt, or dipped in ink from the tops of their heads to the soles of their feet. A Hawaiian historian by the name of Samuel Kamakau also noted that this solid black tattooing was known as Pahupahu and was commonly applied to warriors.

Oral history tells of warriors whom after being defeated in battle were than taken prisoner as well as beaten and tattooed. As the final disrespect their eyelids were turned up to have the inside tattooed. This form of tattooing was called Maku Uhi. Even some outcast who were born into slave caste were permanently marked with either the curved line on the bridge of the nose or a circle tattooed in the middle of the forehead, with curved lines as brackets on either side of the eyes.

Hopefully, some of the tattoos that you see today, such as the Maku Uhi can now be more easily understood than just, “that guy with the face tattoo!”

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

What’s the Deal with Skull Tattoos?

The skull tattoo generally refers to the value associated with life and dying. Many people these days simply associate the skull with dying, but in many older cultures the actual skull combined with bones is a symbol of life itself, in addition to dying.

Whenever someone decides on the skull tattoo, one of the things which the person is denoting is the full realization of the continuation of living into dying. This is really important considering that it’s only when a person can accept the presence of death that they are able to really learn how to recognize the value of life.

Wisdom is another of the numerous connotations associated with the meaning of skull tattoos. When looking back at the fine art created in early as well as medieval periods, the skull is frequently pictured accompanied by a wide open book since the skull is seen as the manifestation of the greatest type of experience combined with intelligence.

The ear tattoo pictured here is an incredible piece of art. Considering the cartilage in the ear is different for almost everyone, I find this to be quite the innovative piece for the artist who inked it.

The lady like piece here although not my particular style is also a very unique piece of skin art.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Tattoo Heaven – No Rebels Required

When the earliest Tattooed men and womens stories began reaching Western Europe they were generally assumed to be primitives lacking in intelligence or even barbaric because of their ritual tattooing practices. As some of those from tribes in Japan and India actually began making their way among modern and more civilized England often they were ‘allowed’ to mingle with upper society occasionally, but were most often used in shows that displayed them as non human and freakish. It is likely this same unacceptable judgmental idea that led to more recent ideas on what the people who would get tattooed were all about.

For many years it was almost unacceptable to even get a tattoo unless you were a part of an armed service, mostly navy men. And those were very often the bad boys as well. Most ‘good boys’ in the 1930′s and 1940′s didn’t even come home from wars with tattoos. Onto the 1950′s it seemed as if only the real bad boys and local brawlers were brave enough to sport their skin art. Into the 1960′s and 1970′s tattoos had only just begun to break out of the bad boy mold and began to creep into the other areas of society. By the early 1980′s it even began to be ‘okay’ for women to have a small tattoo in out of the way locations. That may not seem a big deal, but considering 30 years earlier it would have been astounding and rare to find a tattooed female at all, this was actually immense progress and a huge jump forward in the way society viewed skin art.And the amazing thing was that tattoos were no longer limited to rebels who lived on the edges of society. In my eyes, this made it harder and harder to decide who needed to be judged, always a great selling point with me.

By the time we rolled into the 1990′s we barely even gave a second stare to women who had skin ink, and by then it was mostly to admire the work. And I recall in the late 80′s only a few years before having slipped from my house one night when I was 16 to return home later with my first minuscule piece of art on my shoulder, and waking up around 3am to my Dad yelling at me. My Dad you see, had not only been a Navy man, as well as the big boats bad boy who spent most of his time in the brig, but he had made it through the entire service without one single tattoo. I remember him grabbing my arm and actually trying to scratch the ink off. He told me that women just did not get tattoos. It wasn’t done. As he stormed from my room I remember yelling at him that I had gotten one and that I was a woman! Since then I have gotten a couple thousand more dollars worth of skin ink, and since then he has never said another word!

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

How Did Your Ancestors Get Inked?

Okay so being of Scottish and Irish decent my own particular ancestors had their own style of ink. If you are a reader and would like to leave a comment or send an email about who your ancestors were, I will do a post about their ancestral inking habits as well! So the Celts are what I come from and true to sense my taste in the recent Celtic art designs are similar. But what about the ancients? How exactly did they do it?

Celtic tattoos were a common sight among Celtic warriors. Much like the Picts who tattooed their warriors to intimidate their enemies, the Celts adopted a similar strategy for their time. A Celt considered battle among the highest of honors and for this reason carefully considered war strategies that included much psychological warfare.

Unfortunately in those days, they didn’t have blaring radios to pipe over loudspeakers played from hovering helicopters, no, they had a different idea altogether. With themselves being considered brutal and primitive beings they played highly on this fact. Those they warred with were commonly weighed down by the trappings common to hand to hand combat styles of war. Hundreds of pounds of armor or weapons tended to slow them down, still made them very efficient killing machines, but slowed them down considerably. A soldier who fell off his horse would never be able to get to his feet in time to avoid death by the sword of his enemy. lg.celtic armbandnice.jpg (18585 bytes)

However the Celts found the perfect remedy for this. They would engage in battle bare chested and even naked which caused futher intimidation of their foes who were trained to believe you never allowed a spot of bare skin in battle. This shook their foes who wondered if they may indeed be gifted with godly strength or other attributes. A Celtic warrior also used flower paste and bright dyes to manipulate their hair into wildly colored spikes.

The Woad plant was used to perform all of their tattooing since it is a hardy plant native to northern Europe as well as all of the British Isles. Woad is the reason the tattoos were blue as it is an indigo plant. When their tattoos were performed they would need to harvest and dry the Woad plants. The dried leaves would then be boiled and strained, over and over until the liquid became viscous and then tapped into the skin using needle like instruments that would force the indigo stain underneath the layers of skin. stonecros10.jpg (30655 bytes)

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

The Ancient Art of Tattooing – Past History to Present Day

All this hype about tattoos; celebrities flaunting new ones every day and people discussing their weird and whacko tattoos at water coolers. Ever wonder when and how it all started? Not the hype, I mean, but tattoos as an art form, and as an essential part of our creative history.

Early Tattoos from the Gods and Goddesses

The beginning of tattooing can be traced as early as Ancient Egypt around 2000 B.C. Female mummies have been uncovered with tattoos that match the patterns etched on figurines from the same period, some associated with the Goddess Hathor.

African tribes used to routinely scar parts of the body for ritual and identification purposes. These ritual cicatrices, or raised scars, would then be filled in with dark dyes extracted from plant sources. All male children of the Monomotapa (tribal leader) would be scarred with whorls of raised flesh on their cheeks, foreheads, and arms to identify them as the future tribe leaders.

In Japan, tattoos flourished during the Jomon, Yayoi and Kofun periods. Throughout the Yayoi period, 300 B.C. – 300 A.D., men in Japan and China decorated their faces and bodies to ward off serpents and evil forces and spirits. Native Americans were well known for their tattoos. In the ancient world, tattoos were used not just to identify people, but also to punish them! There were some interesting tattoo-based punishments on offer then.

In Europe, tattooing was an expensive art form, very elitist, and out of reach to the common people. Royalty such as King George V, Grand Duke Alexis of Russia and King Harold bore tattoos. Early Americans followed the European elitist response to tattoos.

World War Skin Art

During World War II, sailors and soldiers displayed their allegiances through body art. They bore names of their units, ships and divisions proudly. Tattoo shops were located on docks and near military bases and tattooing flourished. (Though I do doubt many of them were as patriotic as the shown face tattoo guy here)

The introduction of the electric tattoo gun caused the prices to drop and tattooing to be accessible to everyone. Everyone started getting tattoos; the Hippie movement of the 70’s brought flower power to stay in the form of colorful tattoos.

In India, lasting temporary body art is practiced using Henna, the green paste extract of a particular leaf. Women decorate their hands, feet and faces with intricate designs using this paste, which, when washed off, leaves behind delicate tracings in bright red.

Yes, you might elicit many a shocked gasp when you walk in flashing that bright tattoo on your collarbone, but now you know enough about our tattoo-beginnings to tell the gaspers you’re only following tradition! Surely, they can’t argue that point?

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

The Ancient History of Skin Art – Marco.. Polo!

When we last broached this subject we learned that the Polynesians had actually created the word Tattoo by a variation of their own word TATU which means to mark. But let’s not forget to include all cultures who have had a hand in creating what skin art has become in the last 100 years.

Japanese Skin Art

The Japanese originated some of the cultural body suits as well. Their body art came in a bit more colorful version then the Polynesian version but additionally was reserved only for the men. It was unacceptable and unheard of for a woman to have skin art. The Japanese believed that the skin art itself acted as wards in protection from evils. This is why warriors were commonly painted more fiercely the more skill and cunning they showed in battles. Japanese skin art collectors commonly ink dragons, demons and strong warriors on their backs to prevent evil from ‘sneaking up behind’ the bearer of the tattoo. The art form of cultural body suits eventually spread far into Asia and was discovered by none other then the 12th century explorer Marco Polo.Marco Polo then unleashed the Asian concept of body suits onto English Society.

Real Tribal Skin Art

The Aztec, Incan, Mayan and various Native American tribes have practiced tattooing since ancient times. The North American Iroquois Indians shocked European settlers and pioneers with their immense body and skin arts. Some Native Americans became relative curiosities in some of the courts of Europe because of their tattoos and piercings. In the areas of the United States that are now known as Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri resided a large Native American tribe known as the Osage Nation. The Osage nation adorned themselves with skin art as a form of their social status. But unlike some of the other Native American tribes, the most heavily tattooed members were the females. Indeed, the more tattoos a woman had the higher her social rank would become. In most Native American tribes, young warriors should always receive their tattoos from a Shaman or the tribal medicine man.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

What is Your Favorite Personal Piece of Skin Art?

And why is it your favorite?

Many people, even those with enormous amounts of tattoos can surprise you with what they may tell you is their favorite. From reasons that regard a persons spirituality to a tattoo of a long lost best friend whose memory sticks close to the heart, sometimes literally.

Occasionally I have run across people who sport body covering tattoos with wildly beautiful colors, amazing depth and clarity as well as just being incredible art, only to have them point out to me some immensely obscure tattoo they got when they were 18 on a bet or a joke. The memory of the episode obviously entirely clouding out what seems to be better art work located elsewhere.

So its increasingly hard to think that you may know what someones favorite may be unless you ask. I have found over the years that meaningful tattoos come in all shapes and forms. Like the tattoo of the baby feet on these feet. Very painful, but also very symbolic of a parents love and a wonderful way, in my opinion anyway, to commemorate the birth of your most cherished loved ones.

I think its a rare person who gets a tattoo that doesn’t have some significant meaning to them. Take the time to grab some decent quality pictures of yours so I can post them here sometime very soon!

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Full Sleeve Tattoos

Thinking what is a full sleeve tattoo and wondering how would it look on you? Actually, they are one of the most famous of all tattoos. They function as more than just arm tattoos, they are part of an art that covers a whole area of a body part. These tattoo designs can be displayed to wrap the complete arm with little or no skin showing and this makes them more unique and attractive. All around the globe today, this tattoo art is being flaunted by a number of celebrities. Full sleeve tattoos can be a spectacular way to represent your attitude and passion. Here is some valuable ideas about getting sleeved.

Ideas on tattoo designing

If you want to come up with the best tattoo designing ideas, you should ask yourself why are you getting a tattoo done, are there any specific importance or its just for show? Always pick a design that flaunts you perfectly. Take your time and make your decision carefully.

Different types of tattoo designs

In the world of tattoo art there are abundant designs available. But, every designs contain it’s own inimitable attraction and importance.

Ø Celtic Designs : Celtic tattoos with their unique knots are making the rounds. Showing off the complicated and highly detailed knot work displays style and charisma. Some animal tattoos interwoven with the knot work in Celtic give you a cool feeling which is very charismatic.
Ø Floral Designs: Differrent types of unique floral patterns can be easily adapted or converted into a tattoo. They are basically done by females which brings up their beautiful and delicate and delicate feminine side.
Ø Japanese Designs: Japanese tattoo art consists of Japanese calligraphy styles and symbols. Popular japanese tattoo designs and symbols and designs are dragons, Koi fish, Hanya masks, calligraphy and symbols from Buddhist and Zen religions.

Creating your own designs is also a good option. There are no definite rules on getting tattoo designs, do the thing which makes you feel the best about your skin art.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Page 1 of 2
1
2
>

Searching For That Perfect Tattoo? Click Here!

Ancient Skin Art

One Real Reason for Skin Art. What is Under Your Ink?

Feminine Tattoos – Sensual Art

Polynesian Skin Art – Art from the Isles

What’s the Deal with Skull Tattoos?

Tattoo Heaven – No Rebels Required

How Did Your Ancestors Get Inked?

The Ancient Art of Tattooing – Past History to Present Day

The Ancient History of Skin Art – Marco.. Polo!

What is Your Favorite Personal Piece of Skin Art?

Full Sleeve Tattoos

Ideas on tattoo designing

Different types of tattoo designs

Categories

Polls

You See This?

Must See Tattoo Artists

Polls