Black geometric tattoo of an arrow with a compass rose at its centre, running vertically along the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Arrow and compass on upper back

Geometric · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A vertical tattoo runs down the centre of the upper back, showing an arrow with feathered fletching at the top and a compass rose in the middle, with a smaller arrowhead below. The lines are solid black with clean outlines and simple interior detailing. The tattoo is centred on a bare back with a plain grey backdrop, and the subject's head is turned away from the camera.

Geometric Back Arrow Compass Compass rose Star Spine Feather

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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

Dear Ruth, the wind has been at the shutters since Tuesday and Mr Ashby has finally let me hold the dividers, so you may stop telling Mother I am idle. Yesterday I inked the compass rose on the Sound chart myself, eight points and the little star at the centre, and he went over my lines with his lens and said nothing, which from Ashby is praise.

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The arrow was the difficult part. Ashby wants every bearing on his charts shown with a shaft and a barbed head, the way the old Dutchmen drew them, so the fletching has to be neat or the fishermen cannot read it by lamplight. I spent three evenings on the feathers alone. You would laugh at how particular I became. Each barb had to lean the same way, like wheat in a field after rain.

There is a boy from the lifeboat house who comes by at dusk to ask whether the chart shows the Mary Anne's channel. I told him it does, and that the arrow points where the water runs deepest. He asked if the star meant luck. I said it meant the sea had been measured, which is a better thing than luck, though I could see he did not agree.

Last night I pricked the final bearing onto the copper plate in reverse, so that when it prints it will read true. I sat with the lamp until the sea went grey through the window and felt, for once, that I knew exactly where I was. Write soon, and tell me the Pennington cousins have not taken the good sealing wax again.