Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Exercise A tattoo



Tattoo – To mark a person with an indelible design by inserting pigment into punctures in the skin.

Body Art – Art made on, with or consisting of the human body.  The most common forms are tattoos and body piercings, but can include scarification, branding and body painting.

A History of Tattooing

3300-3200 B.C.- Otzi the Ice Man lived during this period and had a total of 57 tattoos, that could possibly have been medical tattoos.







Some of Otzi the Ice Man’s 57 Tattoos

2100 B.C. – Female Egyptians from the eleventh dynasty were tattooed for ritualistic purposes. Also around this time in Ancient Greece and Rome tattoos were beginning to be used as a sign of ownership on slaves, and also a way of transmitting secret messages across enemy lines.

487 AD – Pope Hadrian, bans the use of Tattoos, but despite this they were still evident amongst Christian pilgrims who received them as symbols of their faith.  During this time, the Danes, Norse and Saxon people tattooed their family crests on their bodies using woad.

300-600 AD  In Japan tattoos were being used to identify untouchable or lower classes.
1769 -  Tattoos are re-introduced to the west, through Captain James Cook who brought a painted ‘native’ from Tahiti, back to England.  Captain Cook was the first westerner to use the Tahitian word ‘ta-tu’ or ‘tatau’ meaning ‘to strike’

1777 – The word ‘tattoo’ is formally entered into the English language. During this period it is said that the Prince of Wales had a tattoo of a Jerusalem cross added to his body and many of the English upper class followed suit.

America

Early twentieth century – Tattooed circus and carnival performers, started to appear in sideshows.

1891 – Samuel O’Riley invented the electric tattoo machine

1932 – Lindbergh baby kidnapping prompted a surge in many parents having their babies/children tattooed for identification purposes.

1936 – Social Security Cards were introduced, so people had their numbers tattooed onto themselves so that they couldn’t be forged or forgotten.

World War II

The Nazi’s used tattooed numbers to identify Jewish people.

Sailors had palm trees tattooed on their arms if they served in the Mediterranean.

Patriotic symbols of eagles and the American Flag were widely used by servicemen, as part of tattoo designs.

   American Sailor Jerry’ Norman Keith Collins, after leaving the navy,  reinvents the tattoo for the middle classes, by introducing Japanese style, colours and imagery for the American tattoo.

1955 – Assistant Secretary of Defense suggests that citizens in America have their blood group tattooed on themselves in case of military attack on America.

1961 – An outbreak of Hepatitis puts tattooing in a negative light.


Present  Tattoos are accepted more and more as fine art, influenced by culture and ancient history.
Tattoo adorned celebrities are in the news far more now than before, sparking a new generation of body art followers.



Body Art – As mentioned before, the most popular forms are tattoos and piercings, but there are other types of Body Art including scarification, branding, scalpelling, shaping and body painting.

Scarification  A form of body modification that is now becoming popular in western culture.  Scarification has been used by tribes around the world for centuries, as part of tribal ceremonies and rites of passage.

The idea of scarification is to get a raised scar called a ‘keloid’ scar, which then gives the intended design a three dimensional appearance.

Branding is also a type of scarification, but uses heated metal to create a burn, which eventually turns into scar tissue.

Body Piercing

First piercings are thought to have appeared approximately 4.000 years ago in the Middle East.

During the 16th century body piercing spread to India, although the Aztecs were thought to be the first civilization to use tongue and lip piercing as a way of drawing blood ‘for the gods.’

During the 1960’s, when the hippie culture started, many young people travelled to India, returning with nose piercings as souvenirs, and this is popular world wide, today.



Designs from the past

Simple designs were made with lines and crosses, which had a variety of meanings, possibly for identification within their tribe or culture.

Also, as in the case of Otzi the Iceman, they were used for medicinal purposes.

As people evolved so did the designs, animals and figures started to appear, because their ability to mark their skin improved.


Designs from other cultures

There are many designs from other cultures, that have an influence on today’s choice of tattoo, but two of my favourites are the Maori and Japanese tattoos.

Maori Tribal Tattoos

Maori facial tattoos were called ‘Moko’ and they revealed important facts about the person, such as his identity within the tribe.
















A Maori Tribesman. 

If a maori man didn’t have his face tattooed he was known as a ‘papatea’ or ‘smooth face’ and did not have any social standing within his tribe, so basically he was a nobody.

The tattoo was usually in two halves and symmetrical in design.
The forehead was only tattooed on tribal members of high nobility.

Coils on the tip of the nose are meant to characterize great knowledge, and the spiral on the cheek means first born.


Japanese Tattoo Designs

Japanese tattoos are usually of koi carps, tigers, cherry blossom trees and mythical creatures such as dragons and phoenixes.

Each tattoo has a different meaning: -

Cherry Blossoms

Used to represent life, because the cherry blossom is fragile, it symbolizes that you should live life to the full.

Koi Carp

A myth states that a koi carp swims upstream to a bridge or a gate of heaven where they are transformed into dragons.
This transformation symbolizes luck, strength, power, ambition and individuality.

A dragon tattoo






This tattoo design is associated with many things, as stated above, it also represents courage, freedom and strength.

Modern Ranges and Conventions

Body art has become increasingly popular over the past thirty to forty years, particularly piercings and tattoos, not least amongst the rich and famous.

During a period of thirteen years, England footballer, David Beckham, has developed a fascination with tattoos and has many adorning his arms, back and neck.


















Examples of David Beckham’s many tattoos.
Amongst his many tattoos, he has ones commemorating the births of his children, celebrating his marriage to Victoria, religious ones to remember his grandfather and roman numerals.

These tattoo designs work like a road map of David Beckham’s family commitment and his love of them.

The ‘Mum’ Tattoo

There seems to be mystery surrounding the origins of the ‘Mum’ tattoo, but it seems to have become popular during the second world war, particularly with servicemen, who used it as a reminder of home.

Today the ‘mum’ tattoo design is still popular with both sexes, although women tend to go for more cute designs, but it does prove that people young and old, male or female, still love their mum.












Symbolism plays an important part in this type of design, hearts, and flowers etc have a special meaning to them:

Hearts – love, passion, and adoration.

Roses - represents everlasting beauty, and love, but also the colour is important, each colour has its own meaning, which comes from the Victorians fascination with the flower. The rose tattoo is often viewed as a good choice for a woman, as it is a delicate flower.

Flames – can mean remembrance, light of love, and purification.

My Design

For my design I choose to produce something for a female friend because the sex hadn’t been stated in the exercise brief. Iwanted something stylish but  feminine and  I didn’t want to go for anything conventional, i.e the traditional one with a heart in the centre, so I looked at other styles of tattoo.

I came across some Art Nouveau designs, which were delicate and beautiful, and which I thought would and possibly suit the style I wanted for the tattoo and greetings card.



















I sketched out a few ideas, and decided I wanted a mother and baby image as a central part of the design,  so used a modern photograph to sketch from.


















I produced some thumbnail sketches of the proposed tattoo/greetings card image, from which I chose a circular design to work with.

I started to work on a coloured client visual of the image, and got part of the way through, but discovered that it wasn’t working as well as I would have liked, the colours were too strong, and the design overall wasn’t what I wanted, so I went back to the thumbnails and chose a more traditional art nouveau, styled, design.






























Examples of Art Nouveau Tattoos and Colour Schemes.

I found that the design shape I chose to work with, would suit use on an arm, back or body, because you wouldn’t lose the structure of the image, no matter what position the limb/body would be in.

The pink roses symbolize feminism, the yellow primroses, I can’t live without you and the hearts, love, all the things that you would say/should say to your mum.


















Overall I am happy with the design, it works well as both a tattoo and a greetings card, and can be reproduced at any size without losing any detail or meaning, it is not as intricate as some of the art nouveau designs I have come across, but it is still in the same vein.






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