Small fine line black tattoo of a vertical line with clusters of tiny sprig-like strokes on the inner forearm, near the wrist.

Fine line sprig design on forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small black fine line tattoo sits on the forearm, near the wrist. It consists of a thin vertical line with clusters of short, delicate strokes branching off it, resembling tiny sprigs or foliage. The ink is solid black with no colour, and the tattoo is shown against a striped top, denim shorts and a pale yellow bedsheet, with the person lying down.

Fine line Forearm Sprig Vertical line Foliage Linework

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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

The measuring rod in Bay Seven had been bolted to the bulkhead before anyone aboard could read the Latin on the seed packets, and every year the botanists climbed the stepladder to add a new mark. Mother said you could read a tree's age in its rings, but the Orison had no trees, only trays, so we measured in sprigs instead: one cluster for each harvest that had survived the cold.

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I was nine when Dr Okafor handed me the marker and said the ship's clock had drifted again, so we would set the year by the fern instead. We counted forty-one clusters. Beside each one was a name in pencil, the crew who had kept the trays alive through the dim decade when the lamps failed and the reservoir turned green. Hers was the lowest, almost touching the deck plates.

I found the old cutting that spring, tucked in a tin under the seed bank, its roots gone to wire. Nobody had planned to revive it. I wet it with the last clean water we had and set it on the sill beside the rod, expecting nothing. By the end of the cycle it had three new fronds. I drew one more sprig at the top of the line in the careful hand she had taught me, and wrote my initial beside it.

The ship will keep turning whether anyone reads the rod or not. But when the lamps dim at night, I stand under it and count the marks upward, the way you would count stairs in the dark, until my fingers find the newest one.