Realistic tattoo of a black paintbrush with a red paint stroke on an upper arm, shown in a close photograph.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Paintbrush with red paint stroke on an arm

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A detailed black and grey paintbrush runs diagonally down the arm, with its bristles ending in a loose red paint stroke at the top. The brush has fine shaded linework and soft grey tones on the handle and ferrule. The red colour sits against bare skin and a grey top at the edge of the frame, with a plain light background.

Realism Upper arm Paintbrush Brush stroke

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

Mind the puddle by the fishmonger, because the rain has been coming sideways since Tuesday and I am too old to be dodging it. Now, the sign-writer. Walter Pask had the steadiest hand on Gallowgate Market, and everybody knew it, which is why the greengrocer's wife came down the cobbles that wet March morning waving a fist of coins and wanting her name painted on the new shutter before noon.

Keep reading

Walter unrolled his brushes from their oilcloth the way a vicar lifts the communion cloth. Sable, the old ones, with bristles fanned like a cat's whiskers. He mixed his red from a tin of vermilion he had been saving since his wife died, and the rain drummed on the tarpaulin over his head while he worked. Marjorie Dunn, Fresh and Fair, one letter at a time. She said he was too slow. He said a name done in a hurry gets washed away by the first wet winter, and she could go and find a cheaper man if she liked.

The shutter was finished by noon. Then the rain stopped, the sun came out over the stalls, and Marjorie stood a long while looking at the K, where a bead of red had run a finger's length down the grain. She asked what it would cost to fix. Walter tapped the handle of his brush twice against his palm and said the drip was the only honest paint on the whole street.

When the market was pulled down years later, a lad from the council fished that shutter out of the skip and sold it to a bar in Leeds. The red stroke is still there, if you know to look. Walter would have liked that. Sign-writers never expect to be remembered, only read in passing, and a drip that outlasts the name is about as good as the trade gets.