Pencil drawing of a cross with a ribbon banner wrapped around it, shaded in black and grey, a tattoo flash design.

Cross with wrapped ribbon banner

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A pencil drawing of a cross with flared, faceted ends, with a ribbon banner wound around the upper arms and shaft. The linework is clean and the ribbon is shaded with soft grey tones to give it dimension. The design is shown in greyscale on a plain white background, centred on the page.

Traditional Cross Ribbon Banner

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

Mind the puddle by the fish stalls, you lot, and sit close, because the rain's coming in off the estuary and I'll not shout over it. You want to know why the iron cross at the top of Pennock Lane has a ribbon wound round it? Well. Hold your tongue and I'll tell you.

Keep reading

There was a ribbon-seller in this market called Ada Venn, who kept a stall under canvas where the gutters always overflowed. Every Saturday she sold grey silk by the yard to fishermen's wives, and every Saturday a man in a sou'wester bought one length and never paid for it. Ada didn't mind. She'd wind the grey silk round the old cross on the well-head, the one with the flared ends worn smooth as soap, because she said a cross ought to carry something, same as a man carries his wages home.

Then came the winter the boats didn't come back up the channel. Ada wound and wound, and the banner grew thick round the shaft until the cross looked like it was being carried off by the weather. The mayor wanted it cut down. Ada stood in front of him with a pair of shears held blade-down and said, 'Cut the ribbon, and you cut the count.' Nobody knew what she meant, and she never said.

The man in the sou'wester came back in March, soaked to the bone, holding the last unpaid length. He pressed it into her hand. 'Keep it on,' he said, and she did. The rain has never shifted it, and if you look close on a wet morning you'll see the grey gone the colour of a pearl, and that, my friends, is the only receipt Ada ever wanted. Now, who's buying the cockles?