Colour tattoo of a mermaid with a green tail rising from blue and white waves across the lower back, in a traditional style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mermaid rising from waves on lower back

Traditional · Back · Colour · Photo

A mermaid with long blonde hair and a green tail sits on a crest of white-capped waves at the centre of the lower back. The linework is bold and the shading is soft, with blue and green ink forming the sea that spreads across the full width of the back. The tattoo sits above the waistband of a pair of jeans, with the rest of the frame showing skin and denim.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday, Margate, and the wind has got into the caravan again. Dad says it is the sea wanting its shingle back. I have been painting the wave board for the Mermaid Splash since six, and my hands smell of turpentine and cheap blue gloss. The board is eleven feet wide, and the ferris wheel man says the crests have to curl higher than the gap in the boards or the punters will not believe in her.

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Her, Nell, is the girl who sits on the crest every night at eight. She has hair the colour of wet sand and a tail she painted herself, green at the fin where the light catches it. Last night a lad in a Levi's jacket leaned over the rail and said the tail looked like a bit of old bottle glass, and Nell just smiled at him and said the sea makes everything look like that eventually. He went off looking pleased with himself, which is what she intended.

The fair packs up on Sunday. Dad wants the wave board burned because the damp has got into the hinges, but I have wrapped it in an old sheet and put it under my bunk. I have decided the mermaid rides out of Margate on it, the way she always does, one hand up to say she is not finished yet. I am going to paint a second wave for the next town tonight, and it will be the bluest one yet.

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