The Aesthetics and Themes of Traditional Tattoos

American traditional, or just traditional, is the most well known type of tattooing. For some, it's old school. For others, it's celebrated through historic figures like Sailor Jerry. However you came to traditional tattooing, there is no denying the appeal. Bold, clear, and easily scalable, traditional tattooing delivers a "tattoo." And, with infinite iconography and thematic possibilities, traditional works for many desired outcomes. Co:Create artists Katie Gray, Nick Paine, Myke Chambers and Austin Maples push traditional tattooing into new, contemporary dimensions.

The Co:Create Method

Every tattoo style has a range of expressions. At Co:Create, we acknowledged that range, and are focused on three core considerations for describing the tattoo you want: aesthetic, iconography, and technique.

Aesthetic refers to how the tattoo looks. Line weight, color, saturation, movement with the body all contribute to look.

Iconography examines the meaning attached to the tattoo. We describe the cultural, historical, and spiritual connections chosen imagery carries and communicates.

Technique specifies the methods used to. For example, different techniques of shading (whip, dot, drag, etc.) create different levels of depth and dimension. Color layering, color packing, or distinct forms of linework, all contribute to refining the final form of your tattoo.

Discussing these three elements with your artist helps assure you get your dream tattoo.

Traditional Iconographic Sources 

Traditional tattoos cover a large swath of themes: love, loss, friendship, power, strength, luck, transformation, and more. Source material, naturally, runs deep. At its commercial origin, from the 1870s to 1930s, patriotic symbolism and Victorian iconography (both spread via vernacular craft, commercial decorative arts, and the emergence of mass printing) assured that skin was just another surface for conveying the same things that featured on ceramics, furniture, paper, scrimshaw, insignia...all the things that can become vessels for visual culture. As time passes, traditional tattooing picks up more symbols from popular culture. Some of these are from advertising, others are from shifts in religious imagery. This is how, and why, something like the rock of ages (derived from lithographs illustrating a popular hymn) find artistic connection to pin up girls and Japanese mythology. In the 2010s, Austin-based tattoo artist Steve Byrne noted that anything can become a traditional tattoo. He's not wrong. Old school might define the circulated images that defined the pre- and immediate post- World War era. These are most famously delivered to our contemporary consciousness by Honolulu legend Sailor Jerry. Today, his legacy lives on, but does so beside figures like Byrne, Valarie Vargas, Bert Krak, and others who've continued the, well, aesthetic tradition.

Traditional Aesthetics 

Traditional tattoos are two-dimensional. There are two key components: black outline, color fill. Traditional tattoos are dense, colors are bold and, ideally, bright. The tattoos read clearly from a distance. Work by Zach Nelligan, Myke Chambers, Becca Genné-Bacon continues to evolve this archetypal approach. In more recent years, some traditional artists have embraced focus on the bold outline and black only shading. While a deviation from the norm of old school aesthetics, the overarching stylistic traits remain the same, with artists like Los Angeles-based Graham Harrington and Derick Montez offering clear examples. Adam Gibson and Ross K. Jones work in both color and black traditional, proving that the aesthetic approaches have near equal popularity.

Traditional Techniques 

Traditional tattoos include clean line work, packed color, and subtle whip shading. Some shadow, delivered via black whip, is sometimes applied. Newer techniques, like dot shading, might be used in all black traditional tattoos instead of color packing. Los Angeles-based Austin Maples is notable for the smooth grey shading (a technique drawn from black and grey tattooing) and heavy contrast black work. Katie Gray, working in San Francisco, also employs grey wash shading, along with classic whip shades and bold color packing. Nick Paine, in Santa Rosa, CA, focuses on “strong, bold tattoos,” and his portfolio exhibits use of classic techniques to achieve that description.

Traditional History 

Traditional tattooing has a long, complicated history. Elements of it are recorded from the 1700s. Through the 1800s, common symbols or compositions are noted in the papers that served, essentially, as a sailor's passport. In the 1870s, mass printing and the emergence of electricity, grounds traditional tattooing in port cities across the globe. Traditional tattoo artist superstars (if you will) emerge at this time in New York, London, San Francisco, Copenhagen. The press is fascinated with tattooing, in part due to the opening of Japan to the West and in part due to the proliferation of tattoo shops. American Traditional certainly became dominant thematically from the 1890s through the 1950s. Wars on both the Atlantic and Pacific see seamen and soldiers traveling and, importantly, taking brief leave of service. It's during leave that tattoos are often acquired. Honolulu, Boston, Chicago...well, anywhere navy folk stop, have busy shops. It's also worth noting that tattoo supply companies were set up in this period. Machines are sold, along with sheets of designs. Percy Waters of Detroit and Milton Zeis, also based in the midwest, are the most famous of the early industrial leaders. Sailor Jerry, from his shop in Honolulu, adds to the vocabulary of traditional tattooing and, due to connection with Japanese tattooing, helps to expand the color options. While traditional tattoos dipped in popularity in the 1990s and early 2000s, the aesthetic has built back energy since the mid aughts and continues to have unwavering resonance.

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Traditional artists Nick Paine, Austin Maples, Katie Gray, Ross K. Jones, and Myke Chambers exemplify the traditional style and are all accepting bookings on Co:Create.

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