Traditional-style anchor tattoo with pink, purple and blue roses and a rope on the lower leg above the ankle.

Anchor and roses on an ankle

Traditional · Ankle · Mixed · Photo

A healed or recent tattoo of an anchor with a rope wrapped around its shank, set above the ankle on a bare leg. The anchor is shaded in black and grey, while the roses are filled with soft pink, purple and blue ink. The composition is centred on the leg, with a pair of rolled denim jeans above and a studio chair and equipment in the background.

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The harbour master at Brixham had seen every kind of fool come down the slipway, and Cora Vane was the only one who ever asked him to mind her boat for a month while she sorted her head out. He took the job for the rope she left coiled on the quay: four fathoms of old hemp, tarred black, wrapped round nothing in particular. She said it was for an anchor she hadn't bought yet.

Keep reading

She came back in March with a bag of sea-glass and a sunburn she hadn't earned, and she'd had the anchor put on her leg in a shop above the chippy, the needle man working by the window while the gulls fought over a dropped cod. Cora showed him the design on the back of a cigarette packet. Black shank, grey shadow, the rope bound round it three times like a promise she'd made to a dead uncle. Three roses climbed the flukes, pink, purple and a blue that wouldn't have grown in any garden on the Devon coast.

When the harbour master asked why roses on an anchor, she said an anchor is only ever a weight until something grows round it. Then she went down to the water and threw the hemp in, and it floated the way old rope always floats, slowly, looking for something to hold.

He fished it out with a boathook the next morning. It had caught a single pink petal, pressed flat against the tar, and he kept it in the drawer with the tide tables.

More like this

Colour Japanese style tattoo of two koi fish and pink blossoms with swirling linework across the upper thigh and hip.
Koi fish and blossoms on a thigh
Black linework outline tattoo of several cartoon princesses and a mermaid with ornate scrollwork across the outer thigh.
Cartoon princesses outline on a thigh
Black and grey lion head with lotus and blossom flowers tattooed on the outer thigh, in a Japanese-influenced style.
Lion and lotus on a thigh
Colour tattoo of a smiling maneki-neko cat holding a red daruma doll, with a pink flower and petal, in Japanese style on the inner wrist.
Maneki-neko cat and daruma on the inner wrist
Realistic full-colour tattoo of a green-eyed reptile with scales and teeth on a lower leg, photographed in a studio.
Green-eyed reptile tattoo on a calf
Black and grey tattoo of a longhorn skull wreathed in roses and leaves, sitting on the outer thigh of a person in denim shorts.
Longhorn skull and roses on a thigh
Forearm tattoo of a black yin yang style circle with brush strokes and pink and teal watercolour-style splashes.
Yin yang with watercolour splashes on a forearm
Colour tattoo of a bear silhouette filled with yellow, orange and red folk-style flowers and scrolls, on the inner upper arm.
Folk floral bear on upper arm
Black and grey botanical tattoo of flowers, buds and leaves climbing up the inner forearm of a person wearing dark clothing.
Botanical flowers and leaves on a forearm
Realism tattoo of pink and grey roses inside a triangle on the forearm, partly covered by clear plastic wrap.
Roses inside a triangle on a forearm
Black and grey traditional tattoo of a dagger piercing a rose, with dotwork shading, on the forearm of a person standing on a tiled floor.
Dagger and rose on a forearm
Colour tattoo of an embracing couple in a blue floral panel on the side of the ribs, with a hand resting on the skin above.
Embracing couple in a patterned panel on the ribs

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.