What is an American Traditional Tattoo?

American Traditional Tattoos are tattoos that are defined by their Bold Lines. Black Whip shading and saturated colours of a limited palette.Whip shading is the more peppery/dotty style of shading, which in the past was done for no other reason than speed. But now is done for the aesthetic of that old look. American Traditional tattoos also referred to as old school tattoos started to become popular in the early 1900’s and have been immortalised by the likes of Norman ‘Sailor Jerry” Collins who predominantly tattooed the nautical themes which are still popular today.

Although the name suggests that these tattoos are an American phenomenon that is far from the case. Hamburg based artist Christian Warlich was doing American Traditional tattoos in Germany in the early 1900s. The themes of Traditional Tattooing still stem back to these original tattooers who were tattooing military men on leave, majority sailors (which is especially true in Jerry’s case as Hawaii was a US naval port). But other themes include loved one’s names, roses, sea faring objects such as sharks and also humorous tattoos.

There are many modern artists that are carrying the torch of the early pioneers, such as Myke Chambers and Samuele Brigatane whose unmistakable bold Wolves and panthers respectively are taking the old traditional style to new heights.

There are also other styles of tattoo that are heavily inspired by American Traditional Tattoos such as the Neo-Traditional style which takes elements and themes from Traditional but adds elements of realism to the tattoo such as colour blending, soft shading and varying line weights. And recently there has been a resurgence in New Vintage style tattoos which are stylised Traditional tattoos such as girl heads done with finer lines and use colours which have more muted tones.