Abstract portrait of a man in a hat on an upper arm sleeve, shaded in black and grey with green fill, red line, geometric lines and quote lettering.

Portrait of a man in a hat with quote on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A sketchy, collage-like portrait of a man in a brimmed hat fills the upper arm and shoulder, with his face rendered in stippled dotwork shading. Fine geometric lines, a radiating sunburst behind the lettering and a block of green fill on the left add structure, while a thin red line runs vertically across the piece. Bold and serif lettering reading fragments of a quote sits along the right side of the sleeve.

Realism Dotwork Lettering Upper arm Shoulder Portrait Man Hat Face Quote Lettering Geometric line Sunburst Abstract Collage

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rain had got into the lettering again, so Nell worked the brush in short strokes along the edge of the sunburst, the way her father had taught her. Behind her the Waltzer ticked as its cars cooled. Someone had left the flap of the big top open, and the wind kept lifting the canvas as if it were trying to read it.

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The portrait had come from a glass plate in a biscuit tin under the ticket booth. Mr Halloran, who ran the generator and the cash, said the man in the hat had done the sideshow photographs back when the fair still crossed by rail, and that he had never once smiled for the camera. Nell had painted that stern face onto the back board of the coconut shy because nobody had told her to stop. The red chalk line she snapped across the banner to keep the stitching straight was the only bright thing in the whole field.

Halloran came over with two teas and read the fragments she had lettered down the right-hand side, the half-sentences about what a thing is and what it is not. He tapped the last words with a thick finger. "That's the trouble with him. He answered everything with a question." Then he dipped a fine brush in black and added one word beneath the rest, so small the wind would never catch it.

Nell didn't see it until the fair packed up in Boston and the banner came off the frame. In the grey morning light the canvas was thin enough to show the word through the back, and she stood on the lorry step with the rolled cloth against her chest and read it twice: yes.