Two black tribal-style armband tattoos on a pair of forearms, one with interlocking circles and zigzag bands and the other with circles, a checkerboard and parallel lines, placed on the forearms.

Geometric armband tattoos on both forearms

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two forearms are shown with solid black geometric armband tattoos, one with a band of circles, a zigzag pattern and angular bands, and the other with circles, a checkerboard panel and parallel lines above. The tattoos use bold, even black linework and solid fills with no shading, and the design reads as Polynesian-inspired. The hands are held together, palms up, against a dark background with dark jeans visible.

Blackwork Geometric Forearm Armband Circle Zigzag Line Band

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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 Tom,

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The frost has held the top field for nine days now, so the ewes are down in the barn and I have finally got round to Dad's box of papers. Under the seed invoices I found his drawing, the one he sketched on the back of a feed sack the winter before he died: a band of circles with four-petalled crosses set in each, a chequered square, and a zigzag he said was the beck running under the bridge. He had drawn it twice, once for you and once for me, two strips meant to wrap round a wrist.

I knew he meant the land. The chequers were the eight fields, the circles the orchard trees he planted in rows nobody else would have bothered with. I rang the solicitor on Tuesday and asked whether the east side could be sold. He said the will was clear, and I said I knew, I had only wanted someone to say it aloud.

Enclosed is my copy, traced in pencil. Yours has the two lines above it that he added later in a different pen, as if to say the boundary is finished. I have no wish to argue about the chequers. The sheep are fine, the trees are budding early, and the zigzag is still under the bridge where he left it.

Come up at Easter. Bring your copy and we will lay the two drawings side by side on the kitchen table and see whether they fit together.

Love, Ruth