Black and grey line drawing of a compass rose with cardinal letters and a shaded feather below, shown as a tattoo design on white.

Compass rose and feather design

Black and grey · Flash

A compass rose sits at the centre with N, S, E and W labelled, and intercardinal points marked NE, NW, SE and SW. A fleur-de-lis style point rises above the north marker, and a shaded feather hangs below the south marker. The compass uses fine dotted rings and solid black and grey points, while the feather is rendered with soft grey shading and dark edges on a plain white background.

Compass Compass rose Feather Cardinal points Fleur-de-lis

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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

Dear Hal, the ink in the pot has gone to crust again, so forgive the smudges. Mr Ashdown finally let me draw the rose for the Penhallow chart, though he made me redo the north point three times. He wanted the fleur-de-lis rising above it like a crown, as the old makers did, and I kept thinking it looked like a fish hook pulled up out of the sea.

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The island is smaller than it looks on paper. From the headland you can see all of it in an afternoon: the lighthouse to the west, the chapel roof, and the two boats that never go out past the reef. Yesterday the wind came round to the south-east and stayed there, and the gulls strutted about the slipway as if they owned it. I picked up a grey feather one of them had dropped and tucked it in my hat band, because I wanted something to keep the weather honest.

Ashdown checked my bearings against the old log and found I had drawn the reef a half mile too far east. I was ready to cry, but he only laughed and said the sea moves the rocks and the charts must follow. He has gone to bed now. I am sitting by the window with the candle, and the compass needle on the sill has swung round to point at the lighthouse instead of the north, which he says is the iron in the shutters pulling it.

So I am going to trust the needle and not the paper. If you come at Michaelmas, bring the good ink and not the cheap stuff from Truro. Walk up from the south slipway, where the gulls are, and you will find me drawing the rose again, this time with the reef where it belongs. Your loving sister, Nell.