tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing ...

flash is a design printed or drawn on

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...

cardboard Cardboard is a generic term for heavy paper-based products. The construction can range from a thick paper known as paperboard to corrugated fiberboard which is made of multiple plies of material. Natural cardboards can range from grey to light ...

, displayed on the walls of tattoo parlors and in binders to give walk-in customers ideas for tattoos. Traditional tattoo flash was designed for rapid tattooing and used in "street shops" — tattoo shops that handle a large volume of standardized tattoos for walk-in customers.

History

The term "flash" is derived from the

traveling carnival A traveling carnival (US English), usually simply called a carnival, or travelling funfair (UK English), is an amusement show that may be made up of amusement rides, food vendors, merchandise vendors, games of chance and skill, thrill acts, ...

and circus trade in the late 1800s: an attraction needed to be eye-catching to draw in the crowd, and that visual appeal was called flash. Tattoo artists working at those carnivals would hang up their designs in front of their booths to catch people's attention, so they adopted "flash" as a term for this artwork. The development of electric tattoo machines in the 1890s enabled faster and more precise tattooing. To fulfill increased demand for tattoos, especially

sailor tattoos Sailor tattoos are traditions of tattooing among sailors, including images with symbolic meanings. These practices date back to at least the 16th century among European sailors, and since colonial times among American sailors. People participat ...

, artists began to buy and sell sets of pre-drawn designs. Many of these designs were relatively simple — with black outlines, limited colors, and limited shading — to enable quick work. Many common flash designs are still in this "old school" (American traditional) style. Lew Alberts (1880-1954), known as Lew the Jew, was a prolific

tattoo artist A tattoo artist (also tattooer or tattooist) is an individual who applies permanent decorative tattoos, often in an established business called a "tattoo shop", "tattoo studio" or "tattoo parlour". Tattoo artists usually learn their craft via an ...

who created and sold many sheets of tattoo patterns. In 2009, a scholar wrote that a large amount of the conventional designs on the walls of contemporary shops were based on designs by Alberts. In the 1980s there was a shift in iconography from badge-like images based on flash to customized large tattoos influenced by Polynesian and Japanese tattoo art, such as

sleeves A sleeve ( ang, slīef, a word allied to '' slip'', cf. Dutch ) is the part of a garment that covers the arm, or through which the arm passes or slips. The sleeve is a characteristic of fashion seen in almost every country and time period, ac ...

.Schildkrout, Enid. "Inscribing The Body." Annual Review of Anthropology 33.1 (2004): 319–44. JSTOR. Web. 28 January 2013. By the year 2000, most tattoo studios had become custom shops, with the flash serving largely as a reference for ideas. Most tattoo designs are created by the tattoo artist developing an idea brought in by the customer.

Materials

Flash is either drawn by the individual tattooist for display and use in their own studio, or traded and sold among other tattooists. Hand-drawn, local tattoo flash has been largely replaced by professional "flash artists" who produce prints of copyrighted flash to sell at conventions or through the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. There is no standard size for tattoo flash, but it is most commonly found on 11x14 inch prints in North America. Tattoo flash may come with an outline, also known as a line drawing, printed on a separate sheet, so that tattoo artists do not need to draw the linework themselves.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flash (Tattoo) Tattooing Drawing aids