Black and grey pencil drawing of an electric bass guitar flanked by three shaded roses and a ribbon, drawn as a tattoo design with no body placement shown.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bass guitar with roses and ribbon design

Realism · Black and grey · Flash

The drawing shows an electric bass guitar with its neck running diagonally across the image, with strings and tuning pegs visible. Three roses with detailed petals and leaves sit around the body and neck, and a ribbon or scroll wraps along the instrument. The work is rendered in graphite pencil with soft shading and strong contrast, and it is entirely in greys.

Realism Guitar Rose Ribbon String Music

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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 Nell, The van gave up on the climb above Buxton, and I'm writing this on the back of a setlist while Dougie coaxes the carburettor with a flask of tea and a string of swear words. Snow is coming in sideways off the moor. The bass is across my knees, the old Fender with the chipped scratchplate, and I've been tuning it by ear because the tuner is somewhere under the wet road atlas in the footwell.

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A Land Rover crawled up behind us around four, its wipers beating like a metronome set too slow. The driver was a shepherd with a dog that didn't bark once in the whole business. He leaned out and asked what on earth I was doing playing a guitar in a lay-by in February. I told him I was keeping the cold out of my fingers. He said his wife used to sing to the sheep on this pass, badly, and that the wind would take the notes straight down into the valley where somebody might hear them. So I played him the walking line from that slow number we did at the Mill, the one you said sounded like rain on a tin roof, and he hummed along with his eyes shut.

When I finished, he tapped the neck of the bass where your green ribbon is still knotted around the headstock, and said the roses looked as if they'd been picked that morning. I hadn't told him they were from Mum's garden. He just knew, the way people up here know weather. Then he towed us to the garage at Chapel-en-le-Frith and wouldn't take a penny.

Tell Mum the ribbon is holding. I'll be home for Sunday dinner if the Pennines let me. Save me the end of the roast.

Love, Ray