The Art and History of Tattooing

Tattooing is a skin marking process whereby a motorized needle makes a hole in the skin and leaves a deposit of ink that will stay permanently. The ink is not injected. The tattoo machine has a solid needle or needles inside a tube and it is repeatedly dipped into ink. It's like a cross between a quill pen and a sewing machine. The phrase "pushing ink" comes from a description of this action. The needles makes a shallow puncture, generally just to below the outer skin layer, the epidermis, and down into the dermis. The ink then runs into the hole and is healed in place by the body.

For the majority of its existence, in order to tattoo someone or tattoo yourself, the tools were sharpened hand-manipulated needles. In the late 1880s, the first electric-powered tattoo machine was invented in England. It was finally at that time that tattooing really started to be explored in Western culture, and the presence of it and interest in it have grown over the last century.

The term "tattoos" are mistakenly applied to painted on forms of skin art, which naturally wear off or shed with the outer skin layer. This generic use as meaning "any skin art" can be found with painted henna and theatrical tattoos that are either stick-on or hand-painted.

Here's a picture from when I was getting the backs of both my calves tattooed. I did them about three weeks apart, done by the same tattooist. It was summer so I could wear shorts a lot, but I had to take extra care not to get my legs sunburned at all, as it's even more damaging then usual to tattoos when they get burnt when they are new.

You can see most of the equipment required for tattooing in this photo.

1. Disposable ink cups - these are tiny plastic cups or larger paper cups that hold the ink that the artist is using for your tattoo. These are essential in that this way, each client gets ink uncontaminated by anyone else's blood. If the artist isn't using an ink arrangement like this, don't get tattooed at that tattoo studio.

2. Vaseline, once again in a disposable cup. The tattooist will smear this over the working area. This slows the bleeding down to tiny seeping droplets, which they wipe off repeated as they work. This is part of what hurts about tattooing, wiping the raw skin surface repeatedly.

3. Ink stock bottles. These are the basic tattoo ink colors, and mixing drops of these together, or thinning with water is how tattoo artist make different colors.

4. The tattoo machine. This piece of tattoo equipment really hasn't hardly changed since it was first patented in 1891. A power supply makes a needle go up and down in a tube that's dipped in ink.