Blackwork tattoo of solid black bands and thin lines wrapped around a forearm, shown against a blurred street.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black bands tattoo on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A forearm is wrapped with a tattoo of two solid black bands separated by thin black lines, forming an armband effect. The solid bands have a smooth, even fill, while the fine lines are crisp and sharp. The ink is entirely black and grey on a plain skin tone, with a blurred street scene in the background.

Blackwork Forearm Band Stripe Armband Line

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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

The water came up past the third band on Tuesday, the mark my father painted on the lock gate the year before he died, and I stood in the rain with the windlass in my hand and counted the lines the way he taught me. Broad black for the danger, hairline for the warnings, nothing to be done but ease the paddles a quarter turn and wait for the cut to settle. Mrs Ferriby from the mill cottages came down the towpath with a lantern and asked if the gate would hold, and I told her what he would have told her, that gates only ever hold until somebody stops looking at them.

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By dusk the river had gone brown and quick, carrying a hen coop and two sodden sheep hurdles past the sluice. Jack Rowe, who is fourteen and thinks himself a man, waded out to the chain without being asked and I let him, because he had the sense to keep one hand on the rail. We worked the gate together until the level dropped a finger's width, and then the thin line showed clear above the water, sharp as a pen stroke, and I understood at last that he had never painted the bands to warn the boats. He painted them so that whoever came after would know exactly how much the river had risen and how far it had been willing to go.

In the morning the sun came out thin over the fields and I took a brush and a pot of pitch to the gate. I went over the broad band twice, slow, until it shone like wet slate, and then I left the hairlines alone so the next keeper would have something honest to count.