Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

One-line profiles on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A single continuous black line forms two face profiles stacked vertically, with a wisping line rising from the top of the design. The linework is thin and even, with no shading, and the ink is set against pale skin. The tattoo sits on the side of the ribs, with a hand and forearm crossing the upper frame and a striped dark fabric in the background.

Fine line Ribs Face Profile Line art

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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

Sit closer, for the wind on Scarra always gets into a story if you let it. Mind the fire. My grandmother told me this one on the step of the old net loft, and she swore every word, so I swear it to you.

Keep reading

There were two people on that island, Ailsa Crane and Tam Morrow, who had not spoken in eleven years, not since the spring the Mary Jane went down off the Skerry with Tam's father aboard. Ailsa blamed the boat and Tam blamed the weather, and between them the whole island took sides. Nobody could sit in the kirk pew without a quarrel at their elbow. Only the gulls passed between their doors, carrying crusts and bad news.

Then came the winter the chandler's lamp went out and Scarra sat in the dark for a month. Ailsa had the last tallow candle on the island, and Tam had the flint, and neither would knock on the other's door to ask. So each night they lit that candle on opposite sills and stood with their faces close to the cold glass, looking across the gap of the lane. The smoke rose straight up past the two of them and out over the roofs, one grey thread for the whole village to see.

On the last night the wick sank low and the candle wept its final drop. Tam leaned in to blow it out at the same moment Ailsa did, and their breath met in the glass. The next morning the thread of smoke still hung over the bay, bent by the wind into a shape like a question nobody had finished asking. Ailsa walked down to the slip with a loaf under her arm, and Tam was already there, mending a net he had no use for. Neither of them said a word. They didn't need to. The gulls, I'm told, have been quiet ever since.