Fine line tattoo of a girl holding a red balloon on the calf, with a purple knitted slipper in the foreground.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Girl with a balloon on a calf

Fine line · Calf · Mixed · Photo

A simple black line drawing of a girl with long hair and a dress, holding a red balloon on a string, sits on the outer calf. The linework is thin and sketchy with little or no shading. The red balloon is the only colour, set against the lighter skin and the green garden behind the leg.

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 balloon would not stay down. Every morning Marta tied it to the handle of her cart at the frontier market, and every morning it strained at the knot as if it had heard the bus horns on the far side of the river. She sold sugared almonds and paper windmills to lorry drivers waiting in the queue, and the balloon bobbed above them all, red as a warning light.

Keep reading

Pavel Ruzicka worked the booth nearest her cart. He was a careful man who kept every scrap of paper that passed through his hands, and one afternoon Marta's daughter Lenka left a drawing on his counter in exchange for a stamp she had no right to ask for. It was a girl with long hair and a dress like a sack, holding a red balloon on a string that ran down past her ankle and off the edge of the page. Pavel pinned it above his desk beside the duty tables, and for a week the queue seemed shorter.

On the Thursday, a wind came up from the water. The balloon slipped its knot, climbed over the wire fence and drifted out into the strip of ground that belonged to nobody. Marta shouted. A driver laughed. Pavel stood with his stamp raised and did not bring it down, because there was no form for a red balloon and he found he did not want one.

That evening he unpinned the drawing and looked at it under the lamp. Someone had added a line since the morning: a second string, pulled tight around the drawn girl's ankle and fixed to the margin with a small pencilled knot. Pavel pinned it back up, and the girl stayed where she was.

More like this

Pink fairy silhouette with purple glitter wings on the top of a foot, appearing to be a temporary design.
Pink fairy with glitter wings on a foot
Two black ink face designs on the tops of bare feet, one with a moustache and one with long hair, on a dark red carpet.
Two face drawings on bare feet
Black tribal-style sea turtle tattoo with spiral patterns and a small pink flower on its head, on the ankle of a black and white photographed foot.
Sea turtle with pink flower on an ankle
Photo of two black silhouette cats with arched tails tattooed on the lower leg above a white sock, with a hand resting on the ankle.
Two black cats on a lower leg
Pink flamingo tattoo in a fine line style on the lower leg above the ankle, with purple patent heels on grass beside it.
Pink flamingo tattoo on a lower leg
Purple octopus tattoo with curling tentacles running from the ankle up the calf, shaded with dotwork texture.
Octopus tattoo on a lower leg
Fine line grey floral vine tattoo with dotted details on the top of a bare foot near the ankle, with red painted toenails.
Floral vine tattoo on the foot
Botanical tattoo of a cherry blossom branch with pink flowers and dark stems across the top of a bare foot on grass.
Cherry blossom branch across a foot
Two colour cartoon Hello Kitty tattoos on the calves of a person wearing pink satin heels with black lace trim, photographed from behind.
Two Hello Kitty tattoos on the lower legs
Two colour cartoon Hello Kitty tattoos with black outlines, one on the calf and one above the ankle, shown on a person wearing pink satin heels on a grey road.
Two Hello Kitty tattoos on the lower legs
Dark blue-grey shark fin breaking through a wave tattooed on the heel of a bare foot against a clear blue sky.
Shark fin in a wave on a heel
Black ink fish-like shapes with small red accents arranged in a circle on the side of an ankle, in a brush-stroke style.
Two fish in a circle on an ankle

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.