A seated person in a black bra and patterned underwear shows neo-traditional tattoos of two female portraits on the upper arm, a rose on the hand, and ornate scrollwork and a teal wave on the torso.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Portrait and ornamental tattoos on arms and torso

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

The photograph shows a seated person with extensive tattoos covering one arm, the hand, the chest and the side of the torso, with the face cropped out of frame. The upper arm has two bold female portraits with dark outlines, and the hand carries a red and pink rose inside a dark circular motif. The torso features grey scrollwork, a teal wave, music notes and small ornamental details, with colour and black ink used together against a plain beige wall and white bedding.

Neo-trad Traditional Upper arm Forearm Hand Chest Ribs Portrait Woman Rose Mandala Scrollwork Wave Music note Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mairi carried the fiddle up the lighthouse stair with the bow tucked under her arm, because her sister Ailsa had played it all through the storm and the wood was still warm from her hands. Below them the sea came over the rocks in long teal ribs, and every wave seemed to take a scrap of the tune and carry it back out again.

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The keeper's wife had painted two faces on the lamp room wall, one for each girl, so the light would have company when the men were out at the herring. Ailsa's face had its chin lifted. Mairi's looked down, as if listening for a note under the floorboards. Neither sister had ever agreed which was the prettier.

When the cloud came down thick as wool, the great lamp turned in its brass circle and lit nothing but fog. Mairi set the fiddle on the sill, took the rose-glass from its box and held it up to the flame, so the red and pink spilled out over the water in a ring. Out in the murk a boat answered with its bell. Ailsa said it was foolish, that a fiddle could not steer a ship. Mairi said it was the only thing that ever had.

When the fog lifted, the men came in with a full net and found the two girls asleep on the lamp room floor, one curled against the other, the bow lying between them like a line of wet weed. Nobody in the village asked which of them had played. The sea kept its own counsel that night, and the tune stayed in the tower walls for years afterwards.