Solid black silhouette tattoo of a mermaid with a raised arm and tail on the inner wrist.

Mermaid silhouette on a wrist

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black silhouette of a mermaid with long flowing hair, one arm raised overhead and a curved fishtail, placed on the inner wrist. The shape is filled with flat black ink, with no interior linework or shading, and the edges are smooth and clean. The image is a close, straight-on photograph against a grey carpet, with the wrist filling most of the frame.

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 court of Orrin Sallow pays you in tallow candles to cut its shadows, and you have never once asked why the sea wants its own. Each morning it comes up the palace steps as a wet black stain that the gulls will not land on. You kneel with your shears and your cartridge paper, the way your mother knelt, and you trace the edge of it while the tide is still making up its mind.

Keep reading

The fishwives at Lantern Quay say a mermaid's shadow is the last part of her to go under. The queen's youngest had gone under in the spring, and the queen wanted her back in black paper on the solar wall. So you cut the girl as the harbour boys described her: one arm flung up toward the gulls, a fishtail curling like the last of a wave, her hair lifted in a slow fan as if the water had not yet let go of it. The queen looked at the paper for a long time and said the hair was wrong. It should be pinned. Mermaids did not wear their hair loose in the presence of the crown.

You pinned it. You are a cutter, and the paper does what the hand tells it. But that night you went down to the harbour wall with a lantern and set the lamp behind the cut paper against the stone, and the shadow on the wall was not pinned at all. Its hair streamed out in the wind off the water, and its raised hand was reaching for something that was not a gull.

In the morning the sea stain had gone from the palace steps. Lantern Quay says the queen's daughter swims now with her hair loose and one hand held up to the light, and that anyone who cuts paper for the crown should carry shears, but not the kind that fold.

More like this

Solid black mermaid silhouette tattoo on the inner wrist, with the tail curving downwards towards the hand.
Mermaid silhouette on the inner wrist
Solid black mermaid silhouette tattoo on the inner wrist and forearm, in a blackwork style.
Mermaid silhouette on the inner wrist
Black ink tattoo of three rearing horses in a vertical line with a dashed trail ending in a small curl, on the inner forearm near the wrist.
Three rearing horses in a dashed trail on a forearm
Close photo of a black and brown frog-like tattoo with four splayed limbs on the inner forearm, shaded softly in the body.
Frog-like figure on a forearm
Black and white photo of a solid black silhouette tattoo of a woman holding an umbrella and a broom, on the inner wrist and forearm.
Floating silhouette with umbrella on wrist
Small solid black silhouette tattoo of an elephant holding an umbrella on the ankle.
Elephant holding an umbrella on an ankle
Small solid black silhouette tattoo of an elephant holding an umbrella, placed on the ankle of a light-skinned leg.
Elephant under an umbrella on an ankle
Grey handprint tattoo on the inside of a wrist, with a small blue script word beneath it, against a striped fabric background.
Handprint tattoo on a wrist
Black silhouette tattoo of three birds perched on a thin branch with small leaves, on the inner forearm.
Three birds perched on a branch
Black tattoo of two birds perched on a leafy branch with a third bird flying above, on the inner wrist.
Two birds on a branch on a wrist
Solid black silhouette tattoo of a cat in profile on the inner forearm, with a simple, bold outline.
Black cat silhouette on a forearm
Small black fine line tattoo of a moose on the inner wrist, with the hand raised against a teal curtain.
Small moose on the inner wrist

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