Freitag, 28. Oktober 2016

Sunflower Tattoos

sunflower tattoos

Sunflower Tattoos

The intricate pattern of sunflower seeds and petals make them an exotic flower tattoo—at least if you’re living outside of the Americas! Where I live, they are a dime a dozen, and they flood the roadside in the late summer months. Looking at a whole field of them is amazing, especially since the flower heads line up to optimize their sun exposure. Full of unique sunflower tattoos, this gallery should inspire you and teach you way more about this flower than you ever thought possible!

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Sunflower Meaning

Time for some sunflower facts! Despite their international adoration, sunflowers originated in the Americas and began as a source of both beauty and food. A sunflower tattoo meaning ranges from affection, nourishment, life, happiness, and loyalty. Of course, sunflower tattoos carry special and unique meaning given to them by their wearers. Plenty of people call this July-blooming flower their birth flower, and Kansas even made it their state flower!

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Sunflower and bee tattoos bring together two different characters that love to dance together in the real world. In late summer, you can see these beautiful flowers turning towards the sun and bees darting between them to harvest their pollen. Sunflowers and bees also have something amazing in common! They both emulate something called the Fibonacci sequence. If you add the one and two, you get another Fibonacci number (3). Now add that Fibonacci number with the one before it (2), and you get another number (5). Keep doing that, and you get the Fibonacci sequence. The number of grandparents a particular bee can have matches the Fibonacci sequence, along with the number of seeds spiraling around a sunflower. Sunflowers and bees make great math geek tattoos!

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Sunflower Quotes

“Keep your face to the sunshine & you cannot see the shadow. It’s what the sunflowers do.” This lovely quote from the strangest of sources, Hellen Keller, rings true. You won’t see anything good in life if you don’t look for it. Quotes about sunflowers in the bible don’t exist—mostly because there’s no way someone in the Middle East could ever see a flower from the Americas back then. However, you can find plenty of quotes about sunlight, daylight, flowers, and happiness; People also have a lot to say about sunflowers!

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Small Flower Tattoos

Small sunflower tattoos fit comfortably on any part of your body. While you might want to get just the bloom of the flower, the stalk is just as iconic as the flower. Just the bloom itself shines like the sun all on its own, but the stalks of these flowers grow over 6 feet tall—and you can trust me on that, since they grew like weeds where I was raised. If you want a vertical, small sunflower tattoo—think about squeezing it in as an elegant vine tattoo. Otherwise, the small face of the sunflower can brighten up any area you want inked.

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Black and White Sunflower

Even without color, the sunflower shines with its recognizable shapes. The numerous seeds spiraling from the center and countless petals on the edge of the bulb look completely unlike any other flower. A sunflower outline tattoo lasts longer than a watercolor sunflower tattoo, since the color won’t bleed or fade over time. Using just the outline gives you a chance to focus on the structure of the flower rather than its connection to the sun. On its own, the flower looks mesmerizing, almost as if you plucked it from some magical forest and took it home with you. The spiral shapes and infinite petals also provide a unique way to blend the tattoo in with tribal or modern tattoos.

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Color sunflowers have their own charm, though. The petals of sunflowers represent happiness not just because the sunflower is happy to follow the sun, but also because the color yellow is associated with happiness across the globe. The earthy browns of the flower’s seeds connect it to plant life, and provide a delicate balance between heavenly and earthly symbolism.

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When the flowers grow to maturity, their movement stops, and they permanently face east. This way, they warm up quickly in the morning and draw lots of pollinators towards them. When looking at life, we all need to grow like sunflowers. Constantly seeking both what is right and what makes us happy, we may change our direction many times as we grow. Eventually, we know where to throw our faith and patience even when there’s no proof something good will come of it. Like the sunflowers greet the sun each morning after a long night, we should hold fast and stay true to our values in order to find the happiness at the end of dark times.

Sara

InkDoneRight

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Freitag, 21. Oktober 2016

Joker Tattoo

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Joker Tattoo

The transformation of a wild card in a deck of playing cards to a homicidal criminal haunting the streets of Gotham carries plenty of ancient and modern meaning. When you wear a Joker Tattoo, you tell an ages-old story about taking the world in stride. In today’s article, let’s talk about the tale of the Joker—the old playing card, the classic comic figure that rivals Batman, and the tattooed character in Suicide Squad. Each type of Joker tattoo takes a different spin on the meaning of humanity that we will see today. Prepare yourself for a gallery filled with Joker Tattoos, all collected to awe and inspire you!

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Joker Tattoo Meaning

Card manufacturing companies started including the Joker in their decks in the late 1800s, but the card itself existed before then in the form of two tarot cards. The first and most obvious correlation, the Fool tarot card, represents the essence of life’s journey. The Fool plays exactly like the Joker in tarot card games.

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The Joker’s other tarot association, the Magician, represents talent, capability, and dexterity. The Magician bridges the gap between heaven and earth, and this trait carries over to the Joker we know today. A simple Joker tattoo design can have the letter J, a five-pronged star, or a star in a circle to represent its meaning. Another good Joker tattoo design, the jester himself, looks more easily recognizable.

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Joker Tattoo Comic

The Joker character in the comic series Batman (and its many spin-offs) represents the opposite of Batman. Together, they form a foil. Despite his role as the main character, Batman comes off as unrelatable. The death of his parents might seem tragic, but Bruce Wayne himself has immense wealth, a large company to tend to, and a paper-thin sense of ethics. On the other hand, the Joker served his country, wears the scar of his past on his face, sends clear messages, and wields a solid (if also very psychotic) sense of ethics. If Batman is the hero, the Joker is the anti-hero. That’s someone relatable who we all understand, even if we don’t agree with him.

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We glamorize the Joker and get tattoos of him because we are no stranger to cynicism. The Joker represents the negative part of the human race. Just like inked demon wings or painful quotes, a Joker tattoo reminds us that nobody’s perfect.

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Suicide Squad Joker Tattoo

Comic-wise, the Joker does have a tattoo—a large red dragon on his back. For the Suicide Squad, the designers took liberties with the original Joker design and made him appear more modern and gangster-like. The metal grill, plethora of tattoos, and more human makeup direction accomplish that, though some might find him a little too bland now. To practice for the film, Jared Leto spent time with psychopaths and reading up on shamanism. His on-point line delivery impacts watchers like us and inspires us. That’s where a Joker tattoo comes in.

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The Joker wears many recognizable and poignant tattoos that depict his past. A Joker tattoo hand has a mouth over the skin, and lifting it to your face makes you appear to smile no matter what expression you have. The iconic Joker hahaha tattoo blends modern art with typography, and the simple meaning is that he’s the Man Who Laughs. Inked on his right arm, a robin with an arrow through it tells a clear story that any Batman fan would know. His other tattoos reference either his luck—with plenty of card-related designs—or himself. Jesters with hammers, huge smiles, or simply ‘God’s Only Child,’ show his twisted sense of self.

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A Joker tattoo is more than a homage to the comics and movies, though. They show the dark side of you—the dark side that’s in all of us—and your ability to control it. Many people go through their lives thinking they are practically angels. We know the truth. Without the law, instinct can rule us. Do we let our needs and desires take over in an emergency? Or do we stick to our guns and try to live as righteously and morally as possible?

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A Joker tattoo reminds you every day of the choice we make as human beings. It tells us that while there is darkness inside of every heart, there is a choice to be wise as well. Whether you embrace your darkness or seek to smother it, it exists. Good and evil are not black and white, but shades of gray, and how you choose to make things clear is up to you.

Sara

InkDoneRight

The post Joker Tattoo appeared first on InkDoneRight.

Donnerstag, 13. Oktober 2016

Koi Tattoo

koi-tattoo

Koi Tattoo

When I worked as a letterbrush artist, ‘koi’ seemed to be a foreign word to people. When I asked them if I should include ‘koi,’ in their art, they would give me a deer-in-the-headlights look. That’s why I say ‘koi fish’ now—adding fish at the end suddenly brings up the correct species of fish! That said, I use ‘koi’ and ‘koi fish’ interchangeably in this article—feel free to call it however you want yourself. Oh, and did I mention? Today we’re talking all about koi tattoos for men and women. This gallery is full of koi fish designs galore, and you’ll find everything from a small koi fish tattoo to a huge koi fish sleeve panorama.

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Koi Tattoo Meaning

What does a koi fish symbolize? The symbolism of koi fish changes wildly depending on what continent you’re on. Undoubtedly, their popularity as a tattoo design started in Japan and spread from there, but the fish gained unique meanings as its popularity spread. Their meaning ties in with their color, so let’s start with koi fish color meaning.

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The black koi fish tattoo means overcoming an obstacle, whether that’s become an astronaut, beating a drug addiction, or coming out of a divorce unscathed. A red koi fish spiritual meaning is one of passion or love. They also represent bravery and raw power. Yellow koi represent wealth, luck, and prosperity. They even have their own name in Japanese—yamabuki. A black koi and a white koi swimming together represent yin- yang, harmony, or balance. The colors are also associated with members of a family—black for a father, red or orange for a mother, red or pink for a daughter, and blue and white for a son.

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Dragon Koi Fish

Dragon koi tattoo meaning plays out a little differently. You see, an old legend speaks of a group of koi swimming up the river to spawn. Like trout, they jumped out of the water as they swam through the rapids, but a huge waterfall stopped most of them in their tracks. A single koi managed to scale the waterfall after a hundred years—and that koi became a dragon. Artists depict these fish as they transform from fish to dragon. The head looks like a dragon, but the body looks like a fish!

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Koi Fish Tattoo Sleeve

Whether a koi fish tattoo half sleeve or full sleeve, these fish make for awesome tattoos. Combining them with lotus flowers, waves, waterfalls, and dragons adds to their meaning. A tattoo with a fish swimming up means that you are struggling with something in your life or have overcome a battle. A koi fish swimming down in your sleeve means that you no longer put up a fight—you are happy with your life and how it turned out for you.

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This only scratches the surface of koi symbolism. All of these color associations, directional meanings, and legends aren’t just for visual art, but for tattoo art! Traditional Japanese tattooing goes back ages, and if you like the tale of these little fish, then you should look into traditional artists in your area. Your artist will tell you more about these beautiful fish!

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If you enjoyed this article, you can also check out our in-depth feature on Japanese tattoos. From samurai to yakuza, tattoos play a big part in Japanese culture! You can also follow our Twitter or join our email list to learn about other types of tattoos. As always, thanks for reading!

Sara

InkDoneRight

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