This painting depicts the traditional Japanese method called Tebori. For centuries, Irezumi artists in Japan have been employing a technique called Tebori making tattoos by hand. Te- means "hand" and -bori means "to carve," Irezumi grew out of the imagery found in ukiyo-e, which were created by carving images into blocks of wood, dipping them in ink, and pressing them onto paper. This approach to traditional Japanese tattoos, which consists of using a wooden or metal stick (known as a nomi) with a set of needles fastened to its tip to insert ink into the skin, is still practiced by tattooists today.