Close-up of a black fine line outline tattoo of an irregular landmass on the upper arm, with a blurred green background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black outline of a landmass on an upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A single black outline traces the irregular coastline of a landmass across the outer upper arm, with a few small islands scattered near its edges. The linework is thin and even, with no shading or fill, so the skin shows through inside the shape. The photograph is taken outdoors against a soft-focus green background, with a white sleeve at the right edge of the frame.

Fine line Upper arm Outline Map Island

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 tide tables give us four hours on the spit before the causeway goes under, so I am writing this on my knee while the wind tries to take the page. Tomas has gone ahead with the measuring chain. He calls the bay Long Mouth, which appears on no chart, and I have decided not to correct him.

Keep reading

We walked this coast for nine days in September. I pinned the headland where the gulls nest, drew the single thread of shingle that joins the north point to the Hob, and counted seven rocks the locals call the Sisters, though only five show when the water is high. Each night I inked the outline over my pencil so the damp could not blur it. By the fourth night the line looked less like a coastline and more like a hand held open, which annoyed me, because a surveyor is not supposed to see hands in rock.

On the ninth day an old woman at the chandlery asked to see the sheet. She put one finger on the smallest island, the one I had left unnamed because it only appears at low water, and said her mother had kept goats there. I asked where the goats were now. She said the sea had done what the sea does, and she had stopped asking it questions.

I have written a name in the margin: Goat Sister, low water only. Tomas is shouting that the tide has turned. I am going to leave the sheet open on the stones so the wind can read it before I do.