Black and grey hot air balloon tattoo with ornate dotwork patterns and a hanging anchor on the inner forearm.

Hot air balloon and anchor on a forearm

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A hot air balloon is tattooed on the inner forearm, with its envelope decorated by scalloped bands, dotted patterns and small florals. A fine rope runs from the basket down the arm to a small anchor near the wrist. The linework is clean and the shading is in black and grey, with the balloon's dense ornament contrasting against the plain skin.

Dotwork Fine line Forearm Hot air balloon Anchor Rope Basket Scallop Dot Floral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rope had snagged in the beech tops again, and Nell Harrow was halfway up the trunk with a bread knife in her teeth when the basket swung round to look at her. Nobody in Stannard had seen a balloon this close before. It hung above the bracken like a great ripe pear, its silk bands scalloped in faded blue and cream, its panels stitched with dots and little florals that the chapel women swore were a kind of prayer. Beneath the basket a fine rope unspooled through the branches, and at the end of it, turning slowly, hung an iron anchor no bigger than a child's hand.

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'Hold still, Mr Sallow,' she called, though the man in the basket had not moved since dawn. He had sold rides at the Lammas fair and promised the children a view of the sea. Instead the wind had carried him over the moor and into Hollin Wood, where the anchor had caught on the highest limb and held him like a fish on a line. Nell could see his knuckles white on the wicker. She could see the sky going pink behind him, and the kettle steaming in the cottage where her mother waited with the bread.

She climbed the last few branches and worked the knife through the rope one strand at a time. The basket lurched. Mr Sallow let out a cry that was half laughter and half prayer, and the great envelope lifted and swelled and carried him west over the church spire before the sun had cleared the ridge. Nell slid down the trunk with the anchor in her fist. It was cold and heavier than it looked, and it still smelled of barge tar.

That evening she hung it from a nail above the back door, where it knocked gently against the wood whenever the wind came off the moor, as if something up there still wanted to be let down.