Black and grey fine line and dotwork tattoo of an arrow with a compass star inside a dotted circle, on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Arrow and compass star on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A vertical arrow runs down the forearm, with a feathered fletching at the lower end and a looping curl and infinity-style line beneath it. A small compass star sits inside a dotted, ringed mandala circle near the centre, with the arrowhead above it. The linework is thin and mostly black ink with stippled dots, shown against a plastic-covered surface in a black and grey photograph.

Fine line Dotwork Geometric Forearm Arrow Feather Compass Star Mandala Infinity Dot Circle

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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 Margaret, Mr Halloran has finally gone, and he left his brass compass in the bread bin where Mum keeps the good knife. I found it while looking for the hymn sheets. He took three weeks to peg out the field behind the chapel and never once looked up from his paper, so I followed him with a ball of string and watched what he measured.

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What he measured, I think, was the way the rain runs off Scarrow Bank. Every evening he sat on the wall and drew a small ring with dots around its edge, then a star at the centre, and wrote figures beside it that meant nothing to me. On the last morning he pushed a feathered arrow into the turf by the corner stone, looped red wool twice around its shaft, and walked off down the lane without a word. The lane has more bends than sense, and Dad swears the arrow still points at the church spire.

I went out this morning with the compass to check. It wasn't right. The needle swung north-east while the post lay a little south, so I pulled the arrow up, turned it, and shoved it back into the dirt. Then I tied the wool in a figure of eight around the post, the way his cord had run between the pegs, so the whole thing could never be lost in the grass again.

Come up at the weekend and bring your sketchbook. Dad says I'm to stop meddling with survey business, but he said the same about the bees. I'll leave the compass open on the wall for you, so you can watch the needle find its way home.

Love, Ruth