Tattooing has experienced a Renaissance in the past few years. From being considered déclassé, and/or an indication of a rebellious soul, it has become acceptable. With high profile media reality shows and more and more people embracing it with or without the accompanying culture, it has become not only an acceptable but a growing form of body design. In fact, there has been a burgeoning market among individuals who want to learn how to tattoo.
Defining Tattooing
Tattooing is considered an art form. It is also a craft and a skill. For some, discovering how to tattoo became part of a lifelong passion. To others, it is a business. The tattoo industry is now attracting a wide assortment of individuals. While there has always been a dichotomy between those who “do it for a living” and those who consider it art, it is possible for the two types to exist. The ideal is, of course, someone who has talent and business savvy.
Yet, when stripped down to basics, tattooing is simply the employment of some form of equipment – be it a nail, piece of bone, sharpened stick or a tattoo gun, to place some type of pigment into the dermis the second layer of the skin. The process creates a specific or desired pattern or design when controlled by someone who knows how to tattoo. Depending upon the design, the size, the intricacies, and the use of color or black ink, it may be completed within an hour or two or require days.
Modern Equipment and its Contribution to Art of How to Tattoo
While many traditional cultures still use sharpened sticks, nails or bones to create tattoos, modern tattooists use machinery specifically designed for tattooing. Until Samuel O’Reilly (- 1901) invented an electric powered needle machine, the work was done using needles soaked in ink and attached to a hand-operated base of wood. His patented 1891 tattooing machine provided tattoo artists the chance to create clean and intricate tattoos. This is another invention people can thank the Industrial Revolution for.
The electric machine made it much simpler for tattoo artists to recreate their designs on skin smoothly and with less muss and fuss. As the years passed and small improvements or advancement were made, the electric tattooing machine became a way to ensure the process was also very clean. The needles became single-use. The tattoo artists began to wear gloves. The towels used to wet and wipe down the tattoo are disposable. Everything was done to make sure no one became infected after he or she got a tattoo.
In modern times, you learn how to tattoo on the latest equipment. Whether you are attending tattoo classes at the Master Tattoo Institute or apprenticing in a local studio, you will have at your disposal an electric gun. The advent of this equipment has made the process easier for both the artist and their canvas.
