Black ornamental blackwork tattoo on the back of a hand, worn with diamond rings and long nails against a white top.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornamental hand tattoo with diamond rings

Blackwork · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A close crop shows the back of a hand with a dark, symmetrical ornamental tattoo of layered curves and filled shapes. The hand rests on a white top, and the other hand sits beside it, both wearing large diamond rings, a crystal necklace is visible at the top of the frame. The tattoo is in black ink with grey tones, and the composition is centred on the hands and jewellery.

Blackwork Hand Ornamental pattern Jewellery

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

Dear Tom, the pattern came back from the mill this morning with a note pinned to it in Mr Hollis's cramped hand, saying the scallops on the left side sat a thread out of true. I laid the two halves against the window and they matched, but he is right that the eye catches what the hand forgets. You always said I drew like a surveyor. Perhaps that is why they gave the commission to me and not to Agnes, who draws like a weather vane.

Keep reading

The design is a collar of layered curves, each arc nested inside the next like the rings of a tree cut across, and between them filled shapes, teardrops packed so solid they read almost black from across the room. I pricked it out on card with a bodkin, forty-one holes to the inch, and folded the card down the middle so that each side answered the other. Mother would have called it a mirror that had been taught manners.

A lady came to the workroom on Tuesday, brought up in a carriage with the blinds half drawn. She wanted no colour at all, only the dark thread against white, and she kept glancing at the card as though it might shift if she looked away. Her rings were so heavy they chimed against the table edge. I did not ask where she had come by them. I only counted the points on the design and thought of you out past the Azores, counting knots in the rigging.

I am sending this on the Lisbon post so it might find you before the next gale. Write back with some sailor's news, and tell me whether the sea looks as dark from the deck as this lace does on the card.