Calf tattoo of a fragmented clock face with Roman numerals, a dotwork hand and a small butterfly, combining black ink and green geometric shapes in a mixed abstract style.

Clock, hand and butterfly calf tattoo

Dotwork · Calf · Mixed · Photo

A photograph of a lower leg with a tattoo of a fragmented clock face, Roman numerals and clock hands set against angular green shards. A dotwork hand with stippled shading fades down towards the ankle, and a small butterfly sits near the top of the calf. Fine black lines cut across the design, with solid green geometric panels contrasting the black and grey shading.

Dotwork Geometric Fine line Calf Clock Roman numeral Clock hand Hand Butterfly Line Geometric shape

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

Tobias had the clock off its nail before the rain started, and he was still swearing at it when Mrs Okafor came down the garden path with two mugs and a plate of custard creams. The thing had hung in the shed for eleven years. Someone had dropped it off the potting bench, and the glass had split into angular pieces, so the Roman numerals seemed to slide across the face as if they were trying to leave.

Keep reading

'It was never going to run again,' she said, setting one mug on the bench beside him. 'Your mother knew that. She kept it for the numbers.' He turned the clock over in his hands. Beneath a green shard that cut across the dial like a door left ajar, a small hand had been painted reaching up out of the shadow, its fingers dissolving into dots at the wrist. A butterfly rested on the frame above it, wings the colour of old bronze.

He tried the hands. They moved stiffly, then slipped, then stopped at twenty past four, which was the hour his father used to leave for the late shift. Mrs Okafor didn't ask. She ate a biscuit and watched the rain roll in over the allotments, the green tarpaulins snapping on their poles.

When the sun broke through, the butterfly lifted from the frame and drifted out through the open door, past the hosepipe and the bricks, and settled on the gatepost. Tobias left the clock on the bench. He would fix it in the morning, or he would not, and either way the numbers would keep their own time.