Black and grey sketch-style tattoo of clock faces, roman numerals, clock hands and scrollwork across the upper arm and shoulder.

Clock and scrollwork sketch on upper arm

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a collage of clock elements, including a clock face with roman numerals, a pocket watch with a dial, clock hands and ornate scrollwork. The linework is loose and sketchy in places, with shaded areas, dotwork and brushed grey washes that fade into the skin. Only black and grey ink is used, and the design fills the upper arm and shoulder area against a dark top.

Upper arm Clock Clock face Roman numeral Pocket watch Clock hand Scrollwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tobias, The church clock has stopped again, and this time it is the hands rather than the weights. I took the face down on Tuesday with Mr Pruett steadying the ladder and found the minute hand bent like a bramble caught on a gate. The numerals have gone grey with damp, so I have been repainting the Roman ones on a board and fixing them back under the old glass. They look a touch too proud for a village of sixty souls. Father would have laughed.

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The forest comes right up to the churchyard wall this season, and the fog sits in the beeches until nearly ten. Yesterday I walked the path past the charcoal burners' clearing to fetch a pocket watch Mrs Ashdown wanted mended. It was her husband's, the dial cracked clean across the forty-five like ice on a pond. She asked me to leave the case shut. The scrolls on the back are worn soft, acanthus leaves rubbed to nothing, and I spent an hour with the lens trying to match the curl of them.

The odd thing is that the watch has never kept village time. Mr Ashdown wound it each night at the gate, facing the trees, and by her account it ran fast whenever he came home late. She says the fog is what sets it. I told her a broken mainspring is what sets it, and she only smiled and said the forest keeps its own hours.

I left the watch ticking on the windowsill and climbed the tower at dusk to check the church face against the fog. For once the church and the cottage lamp agreed, both lit at the edge of the trees.