Black and grey blackwork tattoo of a compass rose with arrows and dotted circular lines on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Compass rose and arrows on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A large compass rose sits at the centre of the forearm, with its needle points and outer ring drawn in fine and bold black linework. Arrows and dotted lines cross the arm and loop around the compass, with some areas filled in solid black and others left as open outlines. The image is in black and white, with the arm filling most of the frame against a plain grey curtain.

Blackwork Geometric Forearm Compass Compass rose Arrow Circle Dotted line

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 brass case had split along its hinge, so Marguerite held the needle steady with her thumb while the last tram of the night rattled over the Ouseburn bridge. Nobody on the top deck looked up. It was past two, and Newcastle had gone quiet except for gulls and the hiss of wet tarmac under the wheels.

Keep reading

The compass had belonged to her uncle Tobias, a surveyor for the city drainage office, who drew the old tunnel routes on squared card in dotted lines and ringed every junction with a circle. He marked the dead ends with arrows that pointed down. Eight days ago he had walked out to check a culvert under the Quayside and not come home. The office said he had gone to the coast for his health. His satchel had come back to her on the doorstep, and inside it was the map.

She got off at the Sandhill stop and walked down the steps to the river. The quay lamps made yellow pools on the water. She laid the map flat on the cold stone wall and set the compass on it, turning until the needle lay along the arrow that ran past the circled bend. The dotted line ran straight to a grating at the base of the wall, half hidden by weed. She knelt, pressed her palm to the iron, and felt it shift. A draught came up through the gap, smelling of river mud and old brick.

She took out her pencil and drew one more arrow beside his, pointing down, then wrote the time beneath it in small careful figures. When she looked again the needle had settled, steady as a stone, pointing the same way as every arrow he had ever drawn.