Traditional style tattoo of a bearded man with a quiff and moustache on the back of a hand, with small finger tattoos and a Believe script on the wrist.

Bearded man portrait on the back of a hand

Traditional · Hand · Mixed · Photo

A bold traditional style portrait of a bearded man with a quiff, waxed moustache and ear fills the back of the hand. The thick black outlines and solid black beard are softened by red and pink tones in the skin and a few coloured details. Small finger tattoos of scissors, a butterfly and an anchor sit below, with a red heart on the side of the hand and the word Believe on the wrist.

Traditional Hand Forearm Man Beard Moustache Portrait Heart Scissors Butterfly Anchor Script Believe

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ivy,

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The shop on Harbour Street has changed hands again, though the striped pole still turns in the window the way your father liked it. Mr Okafor has taken the chair by the basin and says the razors are sharper than they were in your day, which he says to annoy me. I have kept your scissors in the drawer where you left them, the pair with the bent thumb ring, because nobody else in Margate can cut a fringe that sits right.

Last Tuesday a young sailor off the Ramsgate ferry came in wanting his hair taken back to the bone. While I worked he told me about his grandfather, who had kept a moustache waxed into two points for fifty years and wore a quiff you could have lost a sixpence in. The lad asked if I could draw it for him afterwards, so he would not forget the old man's face. I said I had no pencil fit for skin, but I could sketch it on the back of a receipt, and he laughed and said that would do.

The drawing went to Pell's parlour two doors down, where the artist worked it in thick black and red, and the beard came out nearly solid. When the lad came back to show me the finished piece, he was grinning like a boy with a new kite, and he had a little anchor and a butterfly put on as well, for good measure.

I told him the old man had been waiting in there all along, which was true enough. Come home at Christmas, Ivy. The chair is free and the scissors are waiting.

Yours in trimmings, Frank