Forearm tattoo of a woman's face with realistic eyes and lips, a hand near her mouth, black brushstroke streaks and red and ochre drips, shown in three side-by-side views.

Realistic face portrait with brushstrokes on forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A woman's face with detailed, realistic eyes, nose and lips is tattooed on the forearm, with a hand with visible knuckles and nails raised near the mouth. Black brushstroke streaks and spatter cut across the face, while yellow-ochre and red drips run down the lower arm. The photo shows three side-by-side angles of the same forearm, with soft grey patterned background.

Realism Forearm Woman Face Eye Lip Hand Finger Brushstroke Drip Portrait

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rain came sideways down Crane Street at ten past eleven, and by the time Mrs Adeyemi reached my stall the canvas on the easel had run. I'd been working ochre over a wet black ground, which is what you do when you want a face to look as if it is being pulled out of weather, and now the yellow was dripping off the bottom edge onto the trestle in long, careless threads.

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She didn't flinch. She shook out her umbrella, looked at the portrait for a long time, and said, "Leave the drips. That's the bit I want." Her daughter had sat for it in my back room three Tuesdays running, with the radio on and the heater ticking. I had drawn her from memory and one photograph taken through a bus window. The cheque had come by post with a note that said only: keep her eyes clear.

So I kept them clear. I worked the irises with a dry brush until the blue came up through the grey like a lamp in fog, and I let the black streaks cut across the cheek the way the rain was cutting across the awning. When the storm eased at two o'clock, the paint had settled into the grain of the board. Mrs Adeyemi paid in coins, counting them out onto the wet table one at a time.

After she left I tilted the board to let the last of the ochre run. The drips pooled in the gutter of the frame and the streaks went soft, but the eyes stayed exactly where I had put them, two small dry points of light looking out from under the water.