Black fine line and dotwork tattoo on the upper arm reading LOVE, GRATITUDE, MERCY, framed by ornamental lace-like motifs and a dotted mandala panel.

Love, gratitude and mercy lettering on an upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows the words LOVE, GRATITUDE and MERCY stacked in a serif-free hand lettering, set within an ornate frame of dotwork and fine line flourishes, with a hanging drop ornament at the base. Linework is crisp and dotted shading adds texture to the arches and lower mandala-like panel. The design is entirely black ink on pale skin and is centred on the outer upper arm, with the photograph taken from a slight angle.

Fine line Dotwork Lettering Upper arm Love Script Lace Mandala Ornament Drop

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 relief boat leaves you on Skerrow Rock with a crate of paraffin, a tin of biscuits and a logbook whose last entry is four weeks old. The wind has already stripped the paint from the gallery rail, and the lamp room smells of cold brass. You climb the one hundred and twelve steps with your lantern swinging, counting them the way the last keeper must have, and at the top you find words scratched into the soft lead of the lantern frame, small and upright: LOVE, GRATITUDE, MERCY.

Keep reading

Below them someone has worked a lattice of curls and leaves, the way a child decorates a hymn sheet, and under that hangs a little iron hook where a drop of water has gathered for years. The logbook explains nothing. Its weather columns are neat until one spring, then the pencil presses so hard it tears the page. Fourteen boats were reported missing in the bay that winter. The only name written in the margin, again and again, is Ada Perrin.

You spend the first night arguing with yourself about the fog signal and the wick, and by dawn you have decided the words are a list, not a prayer. Three things a person keeps in mind when they are paid to watch the dark. You trim the lamp, polish the glass and write your first entry: wind south-west, visibility good, all lights burning.

At noon a drop forms on the iron hook and holds there, trembling, catching the light. You wait for it to fall, the way you have been waiting for the boats to come round the point all week, and when it finally lets go you do not wipe it away.