Black and grey photo of an ornate elephant tattoo with its trunk raised, placed on the upper back of a woman seen from behind with her hair tied up.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate elephant on upper back

Blackwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small elephant with its trunk raised sits between the shoulder blades, close to the neck. The body is filled with dense dotted and patterned detailing, giving it a textured, ornamental look. The image is black and white, with the tattoo centred in the frame and the subject's head and raised arms cropped at the top.

Blackwork Dotwork Back Elephant Trunk Pattern Ornament

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 lift on the fourteenth floor has been dead since Tuesday, so you climb with the shopping hooked on one wrist and count the landings the way your nan counted stitches. By eleven your calves are burning and the stairwell smells of bleach and somebody's Sunday curry. Mrs Dunmore lives on eleven. She keeps a brass elephant on her windowsill, trunk raised, its flanks pricked all over with tiny dots her late husband made with a darning needle and a steady hand over forty winters. She says elephants lift their trunks to greet rain before anyone else can smell it coming. You have never once believed her.

Keep reading

Her door is open a hand's width, which is not like her. Inside, the flat is dim and sweet with cardamom. She is sitting by the window with the elephant in her lap, both palms cupped around it as if it might get cold. She does not look round. She says the rain is on its way, and that you should open the window before the glass starts to sweat. You tell her the forecast said dry. She tells you the forecast has never been up here.

You ease the sash up. The air that comes in is heavy and metallic, and far below the car park is the colour of pewter. Then a single drop hits the sill, round and dark, and then another, and Mrs Dunmore lifts the brass elephant to the glass so its raised trunk catches the light. Behind you the dead lift gives a cheerful ping, as though it has changed its mind. Neither of you moves to use it.