Black and grey photograph of a woman in a black corset and suspenders, with a floral and figure tattoo on her upper arm and a bow tattoo on her thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black and grey arm sleeve and thigh bow tattoo

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows a woman from the chest down wearing a black corset, garter belt and stockings, with her head cropped out of frame. A shaded black and grey tattoo covers her left arm and includes flowers and a female figure, while a bow tattoo sits on her upper thigh. The high contrast monochrome lighting emphasises the tonal shading in the tattoos.

Upper arm Forearm Thigh Flower Bow

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

Dear Ivy,

Keep reading

The boarding house on Marine Parade has finally let me have the back wall of the scullery, which Mrs Pargeter says is to hide the damp and not because she likes my work. I have been mixing greys all week from soot, lamp black and a drop of milk, because the paint shop in Hove wants a fortune for proper tints. The wall will be roses first, big heavy heads of them, and a woman's face half hidden among the petals, looking out to sea the way you do when you have been told not to.

Yesterday Captain Ruddock's boy brought me a length of ribbon he found on the pier, black satin with a white edge, and I have been tying it round my pencil sketches to see where a bow would sit best. I put one low in the corner by the drain, where nobody will look until they are scrubbing, and I think it is the best thing I have drawn this year.

Mrs Pargeter came down with a candle last night and stood a long while in front of the wall. She said nothing. Then she asked whether the woman in the petals had a name, and I said I had not decided, and she said, "Then give her one before the tide comes in and the damp takes the lot," and went back upstairs.

So I have called her Marian. Write to me when you are back from Margate and tell me whether the sea was as grey as I remember.

Yours, Ada