Realistic black and grey tattoo of praying hands wrapped in a rosary with roses, on the upper arm and shoulder, with a banner below.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Praying hands and rosary on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic tattoo of praying hands with a rosary of beads draped across them, set among roses and shaded foliage. The shading is smooth and detailed, with strong highlights on the knuckles and fingers and soft grey tones in the background. A ribbon banner along the lower edge of the arm carries partial lettering, and the piece wraps around the upper arm and shoulder.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Praying hands Rosary Rose Banner Bead Foliage

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

Dearest Tomas,

Keep reading

The rosary is finished at last, though Brother Aldo says I have strung it wrong. Sixty-three beads of black jet from the Carrow mines, and between each decade a small silver rose that the goldsmith on Lantern Row cut for me in exchange for the good blue wool. He would not take coin. He said a man with a daughter at sea understands the price of a thing better than the price of a bead.

I have kept it on the sill above the basin since the spring tide. Each evening when the lamp is lit I take it down and count the decades with my thumb, the way my own mother did, and I think of your hands on the rigging somewhere past the Seven Teeth. The roses are very fine. The goldsmith's boy spent a week on the thorns alone, and I told him they were too pretty for a thing so plain, and he laughed and said that was the point of thorns.

I have not told you the trouble. The harbour master says the Queen's fleet will not be home before autumn, and the ribbon merchant wants his money for the lettering I asked him to stitch along the border. He has spelled it FOR MY in gold thread and says the rest will follow when the cloth is wider. I told him I would wait. I am good at waiting, it is the only thing I was ever taught well.

Then the last bead. I have left a space on the cord, one smooth place with no jet on it, so you can carry the final prayer yourself. Come home and string it, Tomas, and I will tell you the rest of the words.