Black and grey geometric tattoo of overlapping circles, triangles and fine arrows, in dotwork and fine line, on a forearm.

Geometric circles and arrows on a forearm

Geometric · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows overlapping circles, triangles and a crescent, with a long fine line running down to an arrowhead at the bottom. The triangles and parts of the circles are filled with stippled dotwork shading, while the outlines and arrow lines are thin, crisp single lines. The design is in black ink on a pale forearm, photographed at a slight angle against a blurred grey floor.

Geometric Dotwork Fine line Forearm Circle Triangle Arrow Crescent Geometric shape Dot Line

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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

Mind the lamp, it's smoking again, and pass the biscuit tin down to where Dunmore's sitting. Right. You want to know how a man sets a course by drawing circles on a sheet of paper? Listen. Old Abel Strand was master's mate on the Perdita the winter she lost her chronometer off Tristan. The rest of us were praying. Abel was dividing a sheet into rings with a borrowed pair of compasses.

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He worked at it for nine days, three circles to a fix, a crescent pinned to the lower edge where the moon came in through the port. Every line he ruled was thin as a hair, because, he said, a thick line lies about where a ship is. The triangles he shaded with dots, a pinprick at a time, so the dark would hold the wind. When the sun showed a gap in the cloud he laid the arrow down the middle of it and said, there, that is north, and the rest of us simply believed him.

The mate who doubted him was Ruddock, who had sailed with three chronometers and trusted none of them. On the tenth morning the arrow pointed at a grey smudge that Ruddock swore was nothing but cloud. Abel said nothing. He only tapped the long fine line running down from the circles to its little barbed point and told Ruddock to follow it to the end. We raised the Dutch lighthouse at four bells, and Ruddock came to Abel's cabin with his hat in his hands and asked him to draw one for him.

So that's the whole of it. A circle for the thing you can see, a circle for the thing you can't, and a thin line between, so you never have to guess which is which. Now who's for the last of the rum?