Neo-traditional colour tattoo of a sugar skull with swirls, a spider web and a flower, on an upper arm, framed by black smoke-like shading.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Colourful sugar skull on upper arm

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A large sugar skull with a purple base fades into orange at the top, with pink, red and yellow swirls and a flower on the forehead. A red spider web sits on the cheek, and the teeth are shaded in yellow and white. Bold black shading around the skull creates a flame-like border against the skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ines, the paint you sent is the wrong purple. I tried it on the plaster skull Tomas brought back from the market in Funchal and it went grey by the second coat, so I have mixed my own from the elderberries that grow behind the lighthouse. Pound them, add a spoon of lime, and it holds. Don't ask me how I know what the dead want to look at. They always wanted colour.

Keep reading

The skull on the bench this week is for Aurelia Vaz, who wants the festival done properly before the boats come in. Her husband laughed when I asked him to stand still for the measurements, so I measured the jaw myself with a length of string. I gave the forehead a lily the way Mamãe used to, orange at the top where the sun reaches it first, and I ran a spider's web across one cheek because the big grey spider in the chapel rafters has been spinning there since the storm, and I was not going to sweep it down.

The black edging was the hard part. Everyone wants a clean line, but the wind on this rock never lets anything sit straight, so I let the shadow lick out at the edges like smoke off a wick. Aurelia cried when she saw it under the lamp, and then she asked whether I could do one for her son too, though he is still at sea.

Come home for the last night. Bring the good brushes. The swirls need a steady hand and mine has started to shake.

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