Purple octopus tattoo with curling tentacles running from the ankle up the calf, shaded with dotwork texture.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Octopus tattoo on a lower leg

Dotwork · Calf · Colour · Photo

A single octopus is tattooed on the outer lower leg, with its head near the calf and tentacles curling down towards the ankle. The linework is fine and the tentacles are filled with stippled dots that suggest shading. The ink is mainly purple with darker outlines against lightly tanned skin, and the person is kneeling on grass in an outdoor setting.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Joseph,

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Your father has finally let the signwriter at the cabin doors, though I'd have told him the Trent would wash any paint off before Lent. Mr Pask came up from Gainsborough with a tin of purple and a dish of dots, and in three days he had an octopus curling from the bottom panel right up to the brass handle. Its head sits low by the water line, where the old bargees always put the thing that keeps them. The arms come down in tight spirals, stippled all over so they look wet.

The lock-keepers think it's vulgar. The Cutts girl thinks it's lovely and has asked me twice whether it can see. I told her it was your father's idea, which is true, and that he wanted something that held on, which is also true, though he wouldn't say what he meant.

Yesterday we came down through Torksey with the wind behind us and a bag of coal on deck, and I stood at the tiller watching the arms drag the reeds as we passed. Your father says it's only a picture. He was whistling, though, and he hasn't whistled since you went.

So I've been thinking about the letter you promised from Liverpool. Write it on proper paper, not the ledger sheets you used last time, because I'll keep it in the tin with the brass handle and open it every time we tie up.

Your loving mother, Ada

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