Colour tattoo of black palm trees against a blue, orange and red sunset sky, covering the upper arm and shoulder in a realistic style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Palm trees at sunset on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows two black palm trees silhouetted against a sky that shades from teal and blue at the top to orange and red near the horizon, with soft clouds. A dark shrub and a faint line of sea or land sit at the lower edge of the design. The palm fronds and trunks use solid black, while the sky uses smooth blended colour across the upper arm and shoulder.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Palm tree Sunset Sky Cloud Horizon Sea

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

Nell, the cook has finally given up on the potatoes, so I am writing this on the afterdeck with the ink pot wedged against a coil of rope. We have been nineteen days out from Liverpool and the sea has been flat as a plate since Madeira, which the mate calls a mercy and the steward calls bad luck, meaning he would like a storm to justify his wages.

Keep reading

Every evening the sun goes down the same way. It sits on the water like a coin someone has dropped, then the sky turns from green to blue to a sort of bruised orange, and the clouds catch fire along their undersides. I have tried to tell the lads about it, and they only nod, because they have seen it too many times to bother looking. I look every time. I think that is the one thing the sea has taught me.

Yesterday the lookout called down that there was land, and by the time the watch changed there were shapes on the horizon: a low dark line and, standing up out of it, palms. Not one or two but a whole fringe of them, bent over the water as if they were listening for something. The mate says it is Antigua. I do not care what it is called. I only wanted to see the trunks lean in the wind.

I will be ashore by Thursday, with a month's pay and no idea what to do with it. I have started sketching the palms on the back of the manifest, two of them, one taller than the other, with the red sky behind. It is a poor drawing. Keep it for me, Nell, in the tin with Mam's letters. If I come back I will want to see whether it still looks like the thing I saw.