Small fine line black tattoo of a pine tree inside a thin outlined circle on the inner upper arm.

Pine tree in a circle on the inner arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A small pine or fir tree sits centred inside a thin black outline circle. The tree has fine, feathery needle-like strokes along its branches and a short straight trunk, with the top point nearly touching the top of the circle. The tattoo is in black ink only against pale skin, with a brick wall and a dark blue sleeve in the background.

Fine line Botanical Upper arm Pine tree Tree Circle Outline

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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

The sign has to dry before the first train, and you are kneeling on the platform with the tin of black enamel at your knee, trying to keep the brush from running. Somebody has painted over the old lettering again, so now there is only the ring and the tree and, underneath, KILMORROW in letters you copied from a biscuit tin. You were told the tree must sit dead centre. You were told its top must stop a whisker short of the rim.

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Tam, the porter who taught you the signal lamps, said the first tree was planted by the navvies who laid the line, the year the bridge washed out and they had to start again. He said a pine that reaches the edge of its circle has finished growing, and nobody in the glen wants a finished tree. So you go slowly. You lay the trunk first in one hard stroke, then the branches, shorter toward the top, each one a feather of quick touches that lift before they land.

By half past seven the sleet has got into the ticket hut and the signal bell has stopped ringing. A woman in a green coat comes down the steps with a suitcase tied up with string and asks whether the Inverness train is running. You tell her it is, eventually, and she sits on the bench beside your tin and watches you work without speaking. When you finish, she reads the sign aloud, slowly, the way you would read something to a child who is only just learning.

The train comes round the bend with its lamps swinging, and you stand back to let the light fall across the board. The tree is black on the blue, its point just short of the ring, every needle still wet and shining. The woman boards without a word, but at the carriage window she lifts one hand toward the sign, and you think she has been counting the branches too.