Colourful neo-traditional tattoos on two feet, an anchor wrapped in pink and blue flowers on the left foot and a compass rose inside a floral wreath on the right foot.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Anchor and compass tattoos on two feet

Neo-trad · Other · Colour · Photo

Two tattoos sit on the tops of bare feet, one showing an anchor with rope and pink, blue and peach flowers with green leaves, and the other a black and grey compass rose framed by a wreath of flowers and foliage. The linework is bold and dark with shaded grey areas on the anchor and compass points. Soft turquoise watercolour washes sit behind both designs, and the flowers add warm pink and blue colour against the neutral skin and dark background.

Neo-trad Botanical Other Anchor Compass Flower Leaves Wreath Rope

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nell Pascoe had the brass compass in her coat pocket for three days before she said a word about it to anyone. It had sat on the kitchen windowsill in St Just for forty years, the needle wobbling and settling, and her father had tapped its glass every morning on his way to the bus for the dark. He had gone down the shaft at fifteen and come up at sixty with lungs like wet paper, but he had never once let the compass go.

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The studio on Chapel Street smelled of green soap and hot ink. Nell had booked it before she could talk herself out of it. Her sister Jen wanted flowers, so the artist drew them in quickly: campion and foxglove picked from the old tramway banks, a sprig of sea thrift, two blue speedwells no bigger than a thumbnail. Jen said Dad would have thought it soft. Nell said he'd have thought it cheeky, and that was nearly the same thing.

The anchor went on first, because their mother had always said Dad was the anchor of the house. The needle buzzed along the bone and Nell watched the rope curl round the shank as if it might lift off the skin. When the artist asked which way the compass should face, Nell didn't hesitate. North, she said. He always said the weather came from there and the good stuff came after.

Afterwards they walked the cliff path to Botallack with their new dressings sticking to their socks. The sea below was grey-green and restless, and the engine houses stood on the cliff edge like old men who had decided to stay put. Nell stopped at the wall and looked down at her feet, and found she was almost smiling. Jen took the compass from Nell's pocket, flipped it open, and handed it back. The needle had settled. It still pointed north.