Black and grey realism tattoo of a man's face with short spiked hair and stubble, shown on skin of the torso, with a reddish mark over one eye.

Realistic black and grey portrait of a man

Realism · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic black and grey portrait of a man's head and shoulders, with short spiked hair, stubble and a level gaze. Soft shading builds the face and neck, with darker tones in the hair and collar. A reddish, raised-looking mark sits over one eye, and the skin around the tattoo shows a warm tone.

Realism Other Portrait Man Face Beard

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ida had been drawing faces on the Sallowmouth pier for thirty-one summers, and she could tell from the way a man sat whether he wanted to be flattered or believed. This one wanted neither. He settled onto the stool with his collar up against the wind off the bay and fixed his eyes on a gull standing on the rail, as if the bird owed him money.

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She worked fast with a stick of charcoal and a cheap pad, pressing hard at the hairline where the wind had spiked it, softer along the jaw. Halfway down the left cheek she reached for her fixative and knocked the pot of red ink off the crate. It bloomed across the paper and over the top of his eye, a stain the shape of a thumbprint. He didn't flinch. "Leave it," he said. "It's the only honest bit."

She left it. Afterwards she wondered why, because a ruined sketch meant a lost shilling and a grumbling customer. But the red sat on the page like a lamp left burning in a window, and she shaded everything else around it to keep it there.

When he came back the next morning, the wind had dropped and the harbour lay flat as a plate. He held out a folded fiver, looked at the portrait for a long time, and said he'd been away since he was a boy. Ida asked where. He pointed past the end of the wall with his chin and said, "Out where the red buoy used to be." She slid the drawing into a card sleeve and handed it over, and he walked off down the pier without once looking at the sea.