Celtic Tattoos & Traditions

Celtic Tattoos

Celtic Tattoos I've been specializing in Celtic tattoos for over 30 years. And I'm Colin Fraser Purcell, and I've been working with Pat researching and designing Celtic Tattoos for over a decade. This video is a re-creation of a slither representation and teaches that we delivered at the National Tattoo Association agreement in 2014. I like to encourage my clients to seek their tattoo portraits from the significant artifacts of the past.

Then, "were working" together to shape that art lives again in the scalp. We're going to show you in this video a sampling of various types of Celtic Tattoos beginning material. This is by no means a careful examination, and we are in favor of you to seek your own revelation in the world's museums libraries and historical status. I n the tattoo macrocosm, "Celtic", has come to be an umbrella expression for tattoos based on the art of the various cultures of the British Isles and bordering spheres from the Iron Age through the medieval period.

Historian finds substantial common themes in the art of the 7 Celtic nations, all of which are influenced by the Pre-Celtic art of the La Tene culture. With consecutive ripples of intrusion and cross-cultural exchanges, the stylistics themes common in what we now think of as Celtic Tattoos spread widely throughout the Western European neighborhood. It is difficult to say that there are separate definitively Irish or definitively Scottish forms because the lines of demarcation are fluffy and the art of numerous neighboring cultures also oozes over into Celtic art. The most notable of these is the Nordic/ Viking effect. The artistic institutions of these cultures have been retained and passed down in many different ways including illuminated manuscripts, high-pitched cross, and mausoleum markers, Pictish engraved stones, and metal artifacts such as jewelry and artilleries. Examining these peeks into the past, we find the aesthetic acquaintances that stand their behavior through the centuries. We're going to take a look at the different sources and discuss altering them into tattoos. First up: decorated manuscripts.

Celtic Tattoos Gospels

These are Mitt written and illustrated diaries, most often the four Canonical Christian Gospels, in what is known as the insular or Hiberno-Saxon style, differentiated by the synopsis and highly complex digits, geometric linear blueprints weaves and quirks, luminous unadulterated shades, and Zoomorphic imagery. They are written on sheets of vellum, announced folios, each of which has two sides, recto, and verso, or breast and back. Maybe the best-known Celtic decorated manuscript is the Book of Kells. It is a transcription of the Christian messages in Latin organized c.

800 CE. It consists of 340 folios, the majority of members of which contain text, but some of which are embellished with highly detailed ornamentation. Here are some sheets from Kells with the tattoos they inspired. Another good beginning is the book of Durrow. It is the oldest known terminated insular truth work, predating the Book of Kells by over a century. Here's a great pattern of what's called a carpet page. It is perfectly embellished and without any text - A majestic testify of ornamentation for its own reason. Here are some tattoos based on portraits from the book of Durrow. "The Lindisfarne Gospels" was written and embellished at the conclusion of its 7th century in the Priory on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne England. It is widely regarded as one of the most significant is working in this vogue and is exceedingly well-preserved. Here's a page from Kells, on the left, in comparison with the parallelling page from Lindisfarne on the right.

Note how much better cure the shades and items are in the Lindisfarne page. Here are some tattoos be learned from folio 211; you can see that even one single page can yield dozens of layouts. Now let's talk about mausoleum markers and high-pitched cross. Here we are in the graveyard of Quin Abbey, County Clare Ireland, sought for revelation. The Isles are scattered with regions like this, full of carved stone markers, many of which have beautiful Celtic ornamentation. For pattern, here is a cross tattoo based loosely on a high cross stone scratching I obliged in Ireland years ago. This buyer brought us photos of a cross in Killarney and solicited that we use it as a basis for his tattoo. As you can see, the design has been modified for clarity, and a few traditional ingredients have been added. Here is a deem of the churchyard at St. Brynach's in Nevern, Wales. Each area of this standing cross is slightly different, and I have done tattoos on each side.

Next up are Pictish Carved Stone. The Picts were a Pre-Celtic people who inhabited what is now Scotland during the middle ages. Between the 6th and 9th centuries, they engraved hundreds of stone statues that still speak the Scottish terrain today. They are my predecessors, and I find their art fascinating and exciting. Pictish stones fall into two broad categories. Class 1 stones retain a moderately bumpy or natural chassis, and there is no cross in either area. These are the earliest known video rocks and date from the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries. On the left and right sides are examples of Class 1 stones. Class 2 stones are approximately rectangular in shape, with a large cross on one or both sides.

These look after the Christianization of the Picts inaugurating in the 8th century. The types, as well as Christian motifs, are carved in comfort, and the cross with its encircles is filled with layouts. Class 2 stones date from the 8th and 9th centuries. In the center is a pattern of a Class 2 stone. A peculiarly delightful Class 2 stone is in the churchyard at an Aberlemno, Scotland. I have the spirals from the center of the cross tattooed on my own forearm, and I have also tattooed the pattern several times on buyers. Here is a charming design, combined with a sound from another stone that we'll discuss subsequently. Nearby Aberlemno is the Meigle Museum. Pat and I visited in 2005, and Here I am with slab number two. This small museum contains 27 stones and stone scraps, all covered in mysterious Pictish art. This inspirational collect has stones carved with numerous classic Pictish types, including this beautiful mermaid motif. We cannot now know the meaning that the carvers may have assigned to these blueprints, but it is propitious that so many carves have been preserved to give us a glimpse of time into that long ago the world.

There are still quite a few stones standing in their original locations, and some of them have been protected, like the Shandwick Stone seen here. This beautiful Class 2 stone has suffered some wear and been blown over by the air at least once, but many details are preserved in nineteenth-century moves like the one at the privilege. Here is a tattoo based on the spirals from the island fronting area. Still, other stones have been replaced with faxes, the originals having been moved into museums for armor, study, and spectacle. Here you can see the original Hilton of Cadboll Stone in the National Museum of Scotland on the right, and an artist's copy in the initial place on the left. The carves on this stone are especially elaborated and have inspired numerous tattoos I have done. It is like a sampler of all the Pictish forms - there are spirals, key patterns, knot work, figural representations, and made little eels. It presents items in stone every bit as intricate as the sheets of the illuminated manuscripts.

Here's a great pattern of an old Class 1 Pictish stone, found out about Invereen in the 1930 s. Observe the unworked chassis, shortfall of Christian imagery, and little accurate etch. Here's a close-up of what's called a' Crescent& V-rod' design on that Invereen Stone, and here is a tattoo based on that motif. A buyer "ve brought" a photograph of this 8th-century cross slab from Rosemarkie, Scotland, and solicited an adapted account of the primary Crescent and V-rod design. It's always a pleasure when the customer has seen a fresh beginning of revelation. On the left is the sandstone slab known as the Dunnichen Stone. It is incised on one is confronted with three types: a Pictish bloom, a double disc and Z rod, and a mirror and comb. For this tattoo, we created a geometrically accurate account of the double disc and Z-rod motif - a moderately current token represented on many Pictish stones. The first stone was appointed for a regional fiction, long after the Pictish culture faded away. The stone is heavily weathered, but some blueprints are still visible.

The inset photo shows the lower privilege area. Often I need to consult earlier moves of the stones to baffle out what the carvings are because the hour has deleted often of the detail. In the center here is an archival drawing from the early 20 the century work on the left. The picture on the right is our reconstruction using Photoshop to extrapolate the ring decoration. Because only a portion of it was drawn, I pieced together several regions to recreate the whole. And this ambitious woman picked the pattern as a back article. Metal Artifacts are also welcome to hang in their informants for tattoo inspiration.

Pins, jewelry, armor, and other metal objectives are sturdy and often well-preserved, leaving fine items intact for us to draw from. This heavy silver chain, in the National Museum of Scotland, has a clench embellished with a Pictish double disc and Z-Rod decoration. The tradition design on the left is a modern creation using same types. This bronze disc was dredged out of the river Bann in Ireland in the 1930 s and is dated by its vogue to the 1st century CE. It is a beautiful pattern of early Irish metalwork, and as you can see, it sees for an elegant and dynamic tattoo. The British Museum has a stately collect of Anglo-Saxon artifacts from a ship burial discovered at Sutton-Hoo Dating from the 7th century, these metal emblems and shield boss was strong enough to survive the rot of the wooden shield to which they were attached, and they're displayed now on a reproduction.

The pieces are highly detailed. As with the illuminated manuscripts, layouts may need to be simplified and/ or dilated to be effective tattoos, like this fledgling of prey motif. Here is a splendid dragon or sea demon from the same shield. Check out those teeth! He'd make a great tattoo, but I have yet to have a buyer choose to get it. This annular pin, dubbed the' Tara Brooch' by an art dealer, is a charming pattern of Irish insular art in gold, silver-tongued, copper, brownish-yellow, and glass.

It was possibly crafted around the year 700 C.E ., and would certainly have been a status token worn by a wealthy patron of the arts. The tattoo shown at right is a stylized design inspired by this beautiful artifact. "There's" various other regions one can look for tattoo revelation in The Isles, and we'll refer briefly to a few of them now. Newgrange is a passing mausoleum and monument near the Boyne River in Ireland. Like the far-famed Stonehenge in England, Newgrange was constructed in the stone senility or neolithic date, thousands of years earlier than all the other beginning material we've examined.

. . even predating the Egyptian pyramids. The curb stones outside, as well as some interior surfaces, are carved with intricate spiraling layouts that are readily be converted into tattoos. During the Late Iron Age, the La Tene culture reigned often of Europe, including the southeastern component of what's now England. Countless metal artifact subsists, including swords and reflects with ornate swirling layouts. The Vikings were frequent visitors to the Celtic moors and there is much overlap, both artistically and genetically. Much like the Pictish stones in Scotland, the Scandinavian countryside is scattered with video stones of the same senility. If you have Viking heritage, or you're looking for a twisting on the familiar Celtic motifs, you are able to do well to seek revelation in this rich legend. The Nordic art is a much looser wilder vogue, all there is sharing the Celtic love of intricate entwine lines.

This dragon or serpent video store was among those discovered beneath the wooden floors of a church in Ardre, Sweden. They now reside in the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm. Heraldry gained esteem in the late Middle Ages and continues to be used today. A household tuft or lineage stamp can be a good option for a tattoo, connecting the wearer to autobiography and heritage. Here, a father-god and son have opted for their lineage Campbell badges, named on the sectors of colored knotwork. Clan badges are a particular type of heraldry distinct to Scotland. To tattoo a stamp or tuft, it is important to remember that with heraldry the written description is key, but the visual illustration can differ. Here are four examples of a lineage Hamilton badge, and the tattoo compiled from the best ingredients chosen from various accounts. Like lineage badges, household combs can shape good and meaningful tattoos. Here is a couple of examples of Irish household tuft tattoos.

Around the time of the Industrial Revolution, tartan became very popular in Scotland, and distinct blueprints became associated with individual families. Due to the complexity of the entwine, tartan is not being in accordance with small-scale tattoos, and I have only done a piece like this once. In this final section, we're going to discuss practical deliberations for Celtic tattoos, including sizing, customizations, and common wrongdoings. As you've seen throughout this presentation Celtic art can be incredibly intricate and highly detailed some of the brightness in the Lindisfarne Gospels are so penalty they are unable to have been depicted with the single hair, and they still look sharp today. Tattoos, on the other mitt, are alive. We all senility, and tattoos surely soften and disappearance. This means that there's a limit to the line thin-ness and complexity at small-scale sizes.

Often a small motif from a primary beginning will need to be significantly larger to be an effective tattoo. In this pattern, a bow about one-half inch across in a manuscript is made various inches wide-cut as a tattoo that they are able to senility well and seem good for a lifetime. Sometimes a motif can be simplified instead of dilated. The pattern shown on the left has paired loans building up the bow decoration; the tattoo on the right is the same entwine, but with a single wider filigree instead of two thin ones.

In such courses of altering beginning material into tattoo layouts, most of my structures are redrawn multiple times, as I make the best parts of a decoration and seek to achieve a balance and equality that may not have been possible on a carved stone or an insignificant part of a vellum page. An important consideration is the alternating mood of the entwine. It is vital that it always go over-under- -over-under precise; "you've never" want to end up with two or more "overs" or "under" in a row. It must hold to the logic of the entwined, just as something tied in hair or braided in leather.

As you can see from the two direction moves on the right, it can be hard to place blunders when a motif is in the lines only phase. I find that shadowing the design on paper when I envisage the lines are complete helps to expose any mistakes in the thread that were likely to be sneaking. Now, you can see that on the upper one there are three overs in a row in two different places, while the lower motif follows the proper over-under alternation. I recognize what an accomplishment of sect it is for a buyer to be addressed an attractiveness and confidence me to roll it into a permanent work of art on their scalp, so I try to give them a final account on paper that instances my see for how it will look on them.

Sometimes, rather than copying an lying Celtic Tattoos, we are seeking to create a new one. In this pattern, I saw a hummingbird silhouette that I liked and used pieces of other knotwork blueprints to roughly fill it. Then I connected those individual pieces together into an entirely new bow, entwine correctly, and "voila" - a tradition hummingbird Celtic Tattoos. Sometimes a decoration from a historic beginning could use a little elaboration. We like to say that the original masters did the best they could with the materials and methods available to them at the hour. We do the same, but we have Photoshop and graph paper and light-headed caskets available to us. This tattoo, for the pattern, has been realizing into a perfect square from a decoration that was somewhat rectangular. An exciting promotion that we've obliged is the repeat and join of blueprints into a terminated and seamless sleeve of Celtic knotwork body armor. As you can see from the attractiveness shown here, new determines and blueprints develop when the core building block of knotwork is tiled into a larger motif. This particular pattern started with the square from the previous tattoo.

And here's another leg, starting with that last leg's motif, and adding a new bow to the center. This kind of task compels specialized skills, understanding with the logic of Celtic Tattoos, and acute attention to detail. As you can see here, confirming the proportion and length of the stencil is simply the first step on facility daytime. It still needs to be laced up by hand on the back side in fiat to become a continuous and seamless bow. If these steps aren't made, the outcomes are inauspicious. Here is a pattern of someone who purchased one of my blueprints online. Their masters ignored the "readme" text instructions included with the design and left a spread of the back of the tattoo. This defeats the purpose of a sleeve realize fully and seamlessly out of bows. Here is the same design on one of my buyers do the right behavior. Another thing is taken into consideration with this Celtic Tattoos of work is it will make several hearings to achieve equality make. Afforded the length and complexity, the first hearing is generally just lined.

Subsequent hearings a month apart will be for shade, background, and direction tune-up. The make is altogether worth it. Here's another example note how from either area there is no break in the decoration - no obvious starting or stopping quality. And here are a few more illustrations. This truly is the most challenging and quenching task that we do, and I envisage you'll agree that the results are superb. It is a process that progresses from the original beginning material, to a simplified attractiveness of a section of it, to a tiled grid, to a "warped" shape that form fits their own bodies part of the client, and finally to the sized stencil on the skin that is then tradition accommodated by pen before the actual tattooing can begin. Sometimes though, a sleeve can be built in theatres from various independent pieces. This one began with the triquetra decoration in the center, followed by the shoulder detonator above, and was finished off with a wide party at the bottom. Using the same background of dots behind all of the pieces helps to integrate them into a cohesive whole.

Here got a few more examples of sleeves that make revelation from conventional bows, but have been customized to become original Celtic Tattoos art. So far in this video, we've reviewed and considered the basic Celtic Tattoos forms and imagery. A stand-alone historically sourced motif can make a great Celtic Tattoos, but they are able to also be combined with one another and with another type of art, and we'd like to testify you a few examples of that. In the hub of this tattoo is a tradition Pictish double disc - a combination of blueprints from several sources.

To its left is a wolf motif from a Class 1 Pictish stone found in Ardross, Scotland. On the right is a bring motif made in the vogue of the wolf, but exerting the bear silhouette from the California flag. Here are two tattoos that combine other graphic forms with Celtic Tattoos. On the left is a hazmat token we put together for a fervor primary, and on the right is the Crescent from Rosemarkie we experienced earlier combined with iconic California poppies - A adjust design for a Californian of Scottish heritage. On the left here is a combination of two conventional forms. A Pictish stone boar with a La Tene style spiraling party . . . and on the right, a fully custom-built knotwork tree of life with a DNA double helix case. This buyer chose to get two parallelling but not indistinguishable sleeves by combining a lion from The Book of Kells on one side and a Pictish spiraling decoration on the other side with parallel tradition knotwork backgrounds.

Thanks for watching! We hope that this brief expedition of Celtic Tattoos Art informants and possibilities has inspired "you've got to" epidermal adornment. You can see LuckyFish.com to remember a portfolio of my job, speak my blog, and make an appointment for your own tradition Celtic Tattoos. If you can't make it to Santa Barbara, you are able to browse a large list of Celtic Tattoos layouts available for acquiring an immediate download at And don't forget to are in favor of my YouTube channel for an enormous videos, and "re coming with me" on Facebook and other social media to see what's going on at the studio, but whatever you do: Be Art, Get a Tattoo !.

As found on YOUTUBE