Black and green quill feather and inkwell tattoo with ink splatter on the side of the torso, shown beside its pen-and-ink sketch.

Quill and inkwell on the side of the torso

Other · Mixed · Photo

The left panel shows a pen-and-ink sketch of a quill standing in an inkwell with ink spilling onto the page, drawn with dense crosshatching. The right panel is a photo of the same design tattooed on the side of a torso above the waistband, with a black quill, a green-tinted inkwell and a black ink splatter. The shading is mostly crosshatched black with soft grey tones, and the green adds the only colour.

Other Quill Feather Ink splatter Sketch

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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

Dear Marguerite,

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I found the old ink pot from Ashworth Lane in the back of the drawer where you used to keep your sealing wax, and I laughed out loud on the stairs like a fool. The glass is still green where the light comes through it, and the quill I bought you that Christmas is still there too, one vane split and taped with cotton thread. You said it was the only honest pen in Kent. I have been thinking about that all week.

The reunion is on the fourteenth at the Bell in Tonbridge, and Pauline has already rung twice to ask whether we are going to pretend we were never the two girls who copied each other's Latin. I told her we are too old to pretend anything. She said that was exactly what she was afraid of.

So I am writing to ask whether you will come and sit with me by the window, where the ink spilled on the table in 1987 and never quite came out of the grain. Bring the envelope you never posted. I have kept mine. It is in the pot now, rolled tight, under a bit of black ink gone to crust.

If you do not come, I will read it aloud to the coat stand, and Pauline can take notes.

Yours, with a stain on my cuff that will not wash out, Judith