Pencil drawing of a black and grey tribal design with bands of triangles, chevrons and diamond lattice, shaped to curve over a body.

Black and grey tribal pattern design sketch

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A pencil and ink drawing of a tribal-style design shaped like a curved upper body panel, with a large dark band running diagonally through the centre. The design uses bold black bands, shaded triangles, interlocking chevrons and a diamond lattice border, with fine hatching that gives the shapes depth. It is drawn in black and grey on a pale background, with no colour.

Geometric Tribal pattern Triangle Chevron Band Swirl

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

The chart had been folded so many times that the sun at its top had split along the crease, and Marisol held it flat against the hull of the Ada Fenn with both palms while the wind tried to take it over the harbour wall.

Keep reading

Her uncle Tomas had drawn it in pencil forty years ago, before the chandlery closed and before the sea wall was raised. He had shaded every triangle until the paper shone. He told her the dark band running down the middle was the tide mark from the winter the storm came in, and the small notches along it were the days the boats did not go out. She had thought it was a story for children until she saw him sit with the drawing on his knee, counting the notches under his breath.

This morning she had traced the lattice on the lower border with her finger and found it was knots, one tied over one under, each a place to hold. The swirl at the top, she decided, was the turn a boat makes in the channel when the ebb runs wrong. The chevrons were the teeth of the rope she had spent all winter learning to splice.

She folded the chart along its old creases and slid it into the oilskin bag beside the logbook. Tomas was asleep in the cottage on Quay Street with his hands open on the blanket. Out past the wall the water was turning, and she cast off, counting the notches aloud as the harbour lights dropped behind her.