Black and grey traditional-style tattoo of four pocket watches with ribbon banners on the upper arm, with a name written on each banner.

Four pocket watches with banners on an upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

Four open-faced pocket watches with Roman numeral dials are layered over one another, each with a fob and a ribbon banner wrapped around them. The linework is bold and the shading is soft and grey, giving the watches and ribbons depth and a slightly raised look. The design is composed as a vertical cluster that runs down the upper arm, with the banners carrying the words as part of the artwork.

Traditional Upper arm Pocket watch Clock Roman numeral Banner Ribbon Scroll

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 ovens were already breathing when Agnes reached for the first watch, and the brass was cold enough to sting her fingers. Four of them hung on nails above the proving racks, each one bought off a railway clerk by her father and each one running a different kind of wrong. Greta ran four minutes fast. Sanna lost a quarter of an hour every night and found it again by morning, which Agnes had decided was a kind of character.

Keep reading

Tobias came down the back stairs with his sleeves already floured and asked why she kept four clocks when one would do. She told him the bread didn't read clocks. The rack by the back door was colder, the rack by the flue ran warm, and the dough knew it even if the men who sold flour never would. Setting them all to one true time would only make the loaves lie about their hours. He nodded as if she had said something sensible, which was the most she could ask of a boy who had been awake since two.

At ten to five the window over the sink turned from black to the colour of dishwater, and Agnes found that Bet's watch had stopped. She had not wound it. She stood holding it up to the lamp, trying to remember whose turn it had been, and then saw the small scrap of paper tucked behind the dial in Tobias's careful hand: Left it for you, it wants the last tray out first.

She slid the peel under the loaves and let the oven door fall shut. Behind her the four watches began again, one after another, like people clearing their throats before a song.