After a week of glorious weather here in Oldham it finally feels like spring has arrived and for anyone who's not lived in England before, our winters can be very long and dreary. This month, a slight departure from our usual content, we wanted to take the month of outdoors, nature and blooming flora and fauna to commemorate Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday on May 8th. Kevin being quite the nature nerd (check out his nature paintings, his geese are my favourite) and myself being quite the outdoors camper was happy to take a moment to acknowledge Sir David and how his influence extends even to the tattoo world.
With a life spanning 100 years, living such a bold and pivotal role in wildlife documentation and conservation in his later life it's possible to fill books, plural, regaling his adventures, acts of kindness towards animals and the impact his life had on the world. I feel no matter what I write here it will serve as an injustice to truly capturing how impactful Sir David Attenborough has been, not only for the world but also myself.
A core part of my childhood was spent watching the likes of Planet Earth on BBC One on a Sunday night with my family. My love of animals was truly expanded from a mere interest to a passion, something I’m passing on to my son sharing the same documentaries and taking him out in nature to share that love of animals, plants and respect for the world we live in. David Attenborough stands as a pillar amongst the quintessential British global representatives.
Standing as an icon for all animals and nature for us here in the UK, we thought for his birthday we would show a collection of animal tattoos from 7th Circle as an ode to Sir David.
Animals and scenes of nature are an age old source of inspiration for tattoos that have existed for almost as long as tattooing has. Animals have been known throughout many cultures in history to represent different traits, or powers if we take the Chinese zodiac as an example.
Having these animals tattooed can represent those traits, or it could simply be because of a love of a certain animal. Also animals are just really cool, I mean have you been outside?! Go to a zoo man!
The point I’m making is that animal tattoos really are a great source of inspiration for tattoos and something I’m sure almost every tattoo artist would love to apply their own take on. As with every genre or theme, it can be done in so many different styles and approaches, whether that's realism, or something more cartoonish or stylised.
These kinds of tattoos really are a flexible choice when it comes to getting the tattoo you want, they can be something small and dainty like a little butterfly or could be a full shark back piece. The scope is as wild as nature is and given Kevin's personal love of animals and specifically tattooing animals at 7th Circle it's something we are always excited to see walk through the door.
Yes, you do need to get that tiger tattooed on your hand just like this one here, or maybe you’d be interested in something more commemorative to remember a pet that passed? You could have a cool shark tattoo to act as a memento of your first time surfing on holiday or maybe a little Robin for the little guy that regularly visits your garden. Whatever the reason, come down to 7th Circle now the sun is shining, it's the time of the year to start showing off your tattoos and what better way to commemorate Sir David Attenborough’s 100th Birthday than getting a lil animal tattoo…come on, do it for David!
- All Paintings and Tattoos in this blog post were done by Kevin McNulty at 7th Circle Tattoo & Piercing -
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