Black and grey realism tattoo of a pocket watch with a loop bow and roman numerals on the upper arm of a person wearing a white t-shirt.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch on an upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of an open pocket watch sits on the outer upper arm, with its loop bow at the top and a chain-style ring below. The face shows roman numerals and hour and minute hands, drawn with bold outlines and soft grey shading that gives the case some depth. The photo is taken at a close angle, with the person's dark hair and white t-shirt filling the left side of the frame.

Realism Upper arm Pocket watch Clock Roman numeral

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

Right, sit down where the wall still holds the sun, because the watch doesn't like being told a story in a draught. My grandfather's gardener, Ambrose Tull, kept a pocket watch on a loop of chain, and he never once let it stop. Every morning he wound it with his thumb before he touched a spade, and every evening he laid it face up on the potting bench so the roses could see the time.

Keep reading

Now the roses were the trouble. The old rectory garden had a bed of white roses that would not flower for anyone but Ambrose, and the rector's wife, Mrs Pennock, swore they were sulking because he kept the hours so closely. She wanted them cut back to the stumps. Ambrose said a rose keeps its own time the way a clock keeps its own, and that a man who tries to hurry one is only hurrying himself.

So one wet spring she took the watch while he slept in the potting shed, and she carried it to the bottom of the lawn and buried it under the sundial. Nobody saw her do it except the blackbird, and the blackbird told everybody.

The next morning the roses opened all at once, every bloom on the bed. Ambrose walked down the lawn with his hands in his pockets, found the sundial bare, and simply stood there. He did not dig. He only tipped his head the way you do when you can hear a clock ticking through a wall, and the dew on the grass began to shine in a line that pointed, very plainly, at the spot. Mrs Pennock dug it up herself, and she never again told a rose what hour it was.