Urban Tattoos

Don’t you just love the kind of really cool tattoos that women are getting these days? It used to be that every girl I knew if they had a tattoo had something simple like a bracelet of flowers or a little bird on their breast. But nowadays- man you just see everything on women.

I love the fact that women have gotten to the point where they can openly where the tattoos and not be considered fast or anything negative. Here are just a few really great examples of some awesome rocking women with some of the best urban tattoos around! Ya – you go girls!

In the world of tattoos, the concept of the urban tattoo is a relatively recent one. I couldn’t say for sure, but I would be willing to guess that it came out of the recent resurgence in interest in tattoos in the last 20 years or so.

The cool thing about urban tattoos is that they are so rooted in our life today in the city. Since more and more people are moving into cities all the time, it is pretty cool that a new tradition has grown up around the idea of developing tattoos that depict this new urban lifestyle. That is probably why the majority of tattoos you will see that would be considered urban tattoos are basic black and white or grey toned tattoos. It gives them that gritty urban feel.

I noticed that many of these kinds of tattoos tend to center on a certain place, like a tattoo for the city you live in or the neighborhood you have a loyalty for. Some of them are pretty cool looking, with the name of the city, or even a nickname like “City of Angels” for Los Angeles, worked into a design that represents that city.

Of course, the majority of most of the tattoos you will see that you could call an urban tattoo are fanciful ideas of gang tattoos. That is probably where the whole urban tattoo movement got its biggest push and continues to be a mainstay.

So whether you like tattoos for their art, what they say or just because you like tattoos, urban tattoos continue to be a big part of the world of tattoos at large.

Urban Primitive is a new kind of urban tattoo that combines the best of both worlds. It has some of the most beautiful tattoos seen in a long time, and some of the most lyrical. These are just two examples of the many wonderful tattoos that this little shop has been producing for the last several years.

Celebrities, in particular, musicians, play a large role in some of today's urban designs.  Look at musicians like Nikki Sixx, Lenny Kravitz, Eminem, Lil' Wayne and Rihanna and you'll see what I mean.

Although for most, tattoos have a personal meaning, some fans get tattoos simply because they saw the design on their favorite celebrity.  There's nothing wrong with this of course.  In fact, I've seen some awesome designs on many celebrities.  I always like thinking of the reasons why the celeb got the tattoo.  Some special design that "spoke" to them and compelled them to get it inked onto their body.

Here are some of the celebrity designs that I think have inspired urban tattoo designs.

Because I see Jennifer Love Hewitt as a pretty "girl next door" type of actress, I absolutely LOVE the fact that she has several tattoos!  In particular, check out her "Thug Life" tattoo.  I think this tattoo has a great shock factor to it and I love how it makes us rethink her image.  It makes us separate Jennifer Love Hewitt the person from the actress, which is exactly what body art should do - give us the ability to express our inner selves and make people look for deeper meanings of images.

I think this tattoo shows us her sense of humor.

The queen of tattoo lettering is, of course, Angelina Jolie, but there are other celebrities out there with nicely placed, meaningful lettered sayings on their body.  This tattoo says:

"All that we see or seem

is but a dream within a dream"