Description

Black And Grey Tattoo Designs aregenerallybelieved to have originated within prison systems, whereinmateshad no access to colored ink. The technique was broughttomainstream tattoo shops by Jack Rudy and his mentor,CharlieCartwright. They perfected a single-needle tattoo machinetoproduce highly realistic shading in their tattoo designs.Thistechnique works well for portraiture.
Black And Grey Tattoo Designs techniques are often employed foravariety of tattoos. Japanese irezumi, such as the rising koi,aretraditionally done using black-and-gray, although coloredirezumisometimes use black-and-gray backgrounds in a manner similartosumi-e brushwork. Classic Chicano tattoos — which include abroadrange of imagery such as icons in Catholicism or the Mexicanflagand partially originated from prison life — are also normallydonein black-and-gray. Photo-realistic portraits are also commonlydonein black-and-gray, and typically resist deterioration betterthancolor portraits.
In some color tattoos, artists can use black-and-gray initiallytoprovide a foundation for the subsequent shading using colors.Thecolored ink can be added directly above the black-and-grayportionsof the tattoo.
Black And Grey Tattoo Designs is sometimes referred toas"jailhouse" or "joint style" and is thought to have originatedinprisons where inmates had limited access to differentmaterials;they resorted to using guitar strings for needles andusedcigarette ashes or pen ink to produce tattoos. Inmateswouldconstruct makeshift tattoo machines that were powered usingthesmall motors available in tape players. Prisons generallyprohibitinmates from tattooing, so these were likely to be done insecret.During the late 1970s and early 1980s, jailhouse thenbecamepopularized in tattoo parlors outside of prison and wasrenamed"black and gray". Black-and-gray is also thought to haveoriginatedfrom the Chicano or cholo culture in Los Angeles.