During a recent call with my oldest, Amanda, I learned about their affinity towards American Tradition (AT) style tattoos.

I’ve never been tatted before so I had no mental image of what such tattoo art looked like.

But the reason AT tattoos even came up was because Amanda mentioned how much they like that kind of line art style and so I was just curious. Plus we’d been discussing the kind of art they’ve been drawn to lately or wanting to hang on their walls and such and so when AT was enthusiastically mentioned in passing, I just had to see for myself what this tat style is all about.

After checking out a few examples on Pinterest and Google,  I instantly fell in deep like with the thick bold lines and stylized art of this genre of tattoo art.

Beyond the many skulls, daggers, and typical, military-themed designs, I found countless AT style tattoos featuring women and flowers (often red roses) and those “females and florals” themes appealed to me the most.

So much so that I began to sketch out ideas of AT-inspired line art that I could gift to Amanda, perhaps for their birthday or for the holidays.

And so I dove into my sketchbook and started to draw.

Though I’m still tweaking, I’m loving the direction of my doodles so far.

As I’m trying to have these AT-inspired ladies ready in time for this holiday season, please check back around October’ish for updates as well as links to wall art, T-shirts, and more 🙏🏽

Yours in art and creative expression,