Black and grey fine line and dotwork geometric tattoo of a sun, circles, arrow and crescent moon on the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Geometric sun and crescent moon on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo combines a dotwork sun or star at the top with overlapping circles, a crescent moon, a small planet-like circle and a fine arrow. Thin linework outlines the circles and dotted lines, while stippled dots shade the crescent and the central shape. The design runs vertically down the skin, with a small open circle at the bottom and a soft, slightly blurred background of skin.

Fine line Dotwork Geometric Back Sun Moon Crescent moon Circle Arrow Planet Geometric shape Dot Celestial

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Hanne, the brass ring came back from Mr Oakes on Tuesday with the scratch still in it, so I have spent three evenings with a pricker and a lamp trying to dot the sun back into its face. He says a sun should look as if it is thinking about rising, not as if it has already risen. I told him suns over Saltcombe do not think about anything. They simply burn a hole in the fog. He did not laugh, which is how I know he was stung.

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The orrery is for the Harbourmaster's office on the quay, a thing of nested rings with a little planet on a brass wire. Mr Oakes wants the crescent moon set low, the way it hung over the breakwater the night the Maud Ellery went onto the Skerries. I have copied the bearings from the logbook into the margin of this letter so you can check my arithmetic. You always did check my arithmetic.

Last night the wire snapped while I was fitting the small circle at the bottom, the one meant for the lodestone. I sat in the cold workshop with the pieces in my lap and saw that the arrow had come to rest exactly where the dotted line runs out, pointing back up at the sun. I did not plan that. I think the brass wanted to go home.

I am sending the drawing folded inside this letter, so keep it dry. If the post is slow and I am still stuck on the moon by Michaelmas, come down to the harbour and we can finish it together on the wall, you with your compass and me with my pricker, and see whether the sun can be persuaded to rise on schedule. Your brother, Tom.