Black and grey realism pocket watch tattoo with a hanging chain and a teal star outline on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch with chain and star

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A realistic pocket watch with an open loop bail and a long chain wraps around the limb, with its face showing hands near twelve and a small seconds dial at the bottom. The watch and chain are rendered in black and grey with soft shading and highlights on the metal. A teal outlined star sits beneath the watch on a light skin tone background.

Realism Upper arm Pocket watch Clock Chain Star

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 old gardener at Thornbury Hall wound his watch every Sunday after church, and every Sunday the hands ran a little faster than they should. Nobody at the house remarked on it. Nobody remarked on much at the house, which was why Mrs Abernethy kept him on past his seventieth year.

Keep reading

One autumn a stranger came up the gravel drive carrying a chain of tarnished links and asked for work among the roses. He had a face like a shut door and hands that never got dirty. Walter, who had buried two wives and one son, gave him a spade and a bed of dahlias. The stranger watched the watch swing from Walter's waistcoat and offered him a summer of gardens for it. Walter laughed and said it was the one thing in the county that kept honest time.

The stranger did not argue. He only pointed at the star cut into the south wall, the one the first Abernethy had carved, and said stones keep better time than men. By Candlemas the stranger had gone and the dahlias had come up blue, which no dahlia should. Walter found the chain coiled on the potting bench, its loop hanging open like a mouth, and when he lifted the lid the hands stood at a quarter to twelve and would not move again.

They say he still walks the south wall at dusk, hunting for a gate that shuts behind him. Mrs Abernethy's granddaughter keeps the watch on her desk now and never winds it. She says a clock that stopped the right way has done its job, and a garden that stays green through the winter has been paid for.