Black lace-patterned bow tattoo with blue, purple and pink watercolour splashes on the side of the body, likely the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black lace bow with watercolour splashes

Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A solid black bow is filled with a delicate lace pattern, with its loops and tails rendered in open, negative-space linework. Behind it, loose washes of blue, violet and magenta spread outwards, with drips of pink running down below the bow. The bow sits centrally in the frame on smooth, pale skin, with a floral fabric sleeve visible at the top right edge.

Ribs Bow Lace Watercolour Splash Ribbon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nell Pardoe had been stitching bobbin lace for the Saltersmouth fishwives since the spring the herring boats came in short. Her grandmother's pattern book had a bow in the back of it, drawn in iron-gall ink, and she had always meant to make one for herself. Every Thursday the women climbed the hill to the back room above the chandler's with their pins and their tea, and every Thursday Nell's bobbins clicked like a clock that had lost its patience.

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The bow she finally made was black silk thread, worked so fine it looked like frost on a window. She pinned it to the lid of a sea-chest and carried it down to the quay on the morning the Mary Ellen was due back. Gulls wheeled above the harbour wall. Her uncle Tom said a ribbon on a chest was daft, but he held the lid steady while she stitched the loops to the brass hasp with a single gold thread.

The Mary Ellen did not come round the point until the tide had turned twice. When she did, her sails were the colour of rust and her hull was streaked with pink from the dye crates they had carried from Hull, split open in the swell. Nell watched the colour run down the boards and into the water, blue and violet blooming across the harbour like a wash brushed from a loaded brush.

Tom climbed down first and found the chest in the forward hold, still dry. He lifted the lid. The bow was unharmed, its lace tails stirring in the damp air as though they had only been waiting for someone to tie them. Nell pressed a hand to her mouth. The harbour smelt of salt, dye and cold tar, and for once she did not reach for her bobbins.