Guiding Sparrows

Guiding Sparrows

Originally uploaded by CherryVega

This is a beautiful original design. (I will reiterate here the original poster’s desire that you not copy this tattoo — it’s her design)

It’s an amazing, new-school take on the classic maritime design. How gorgeous.

Sparrow Tattoos: A Lovely Gallery

I found a good gallery of tattoos here, with lots of great sparrows in it. It’s a pay site, but they’re really good — they update a lot, and a ton of tattoo artists keep galleries of their work there.

I am normally not a big fan of pay sites — there’s a ton of information out there on the internet for free — but this one really provides a good, easy-to-use gallery. If I were looking to get a new tattoo, I’d probably use them.

Sparrow Tattoos: Classic

Sparrows

Originally uploaded by LizaDanger1

Here are a pair of classic, ten-thousand-nautical-mile sparrow tattoos. Beautiful.

Sparrow Tattoo: I LOVE THIS

Sparrow Tattoo

Originally uploaded by Portable City

This is a beautiful and original piece. I love the holy-ghost aspect to it, the fact that it’s the top and bottom of the bird. How totally beautiful. You can see its little feet.

Sparrow Tattoo: Simple bluesparrow

Sparrow Tattoo

Originally uploaded by madaise

A lovely little blue sparrow tattoo. Nice.

Sparrow Tattoos: A History

I love me some sparrows.

When I was looking for sparrow tattoos on the internet, I found a lot of them, but I had a hard time finding a lot of them in one place, so that I could compare. So I decided to assemble a gallery of sparrow tattoos here. I hope you like them.

I like the classic 1950′s ones the best. But the origin of the sparrow tattoo is way earlier than the fifties. These bird tattoos were originally meant to signify that the wearer, a sailor, had traveled 5,000 nautical miles. So a pair of sparrows meant that you were pretty badass, and knew your way around the ocean, and likely a barfight or two.

These days the sparrow tattoo is almost always tattooed on in pairs, whether the wearer has travelled 10,000 nautical miles or not. They’re often cute little bluebird-like sparrows, but there are tougher versions available, some of which I will endeavor to show you.

Anyhow, here are some sparrow tattoos. Enjoy.