Side view of a man's shoulder and upper arm with a dotwork tattoo of a red and black fan and geometric pattern, with red splatter shapes across the shoulder.

Red and black fan design on shoulder and upper arm

Dotwork · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

A large tattoo covers the shoulder and upper arm, centred on a red and black fan motif with a half-circle at its base. Fine stippled dots and lace-like geometric linework fill the background, with a smaller red and black sunburst pattern lower on the arm. Red splatter marks and a dotted circle add colour and movement across the shoulder.

Dotwork Geometric Shoulder Upper arm Fan Sunburst Geometric pattern Dot Splatter Lace pattern

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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 Win, you will not believe what the Pembrey man left behind, or rather what he did not come back for. He had the back bedroom from March to the first week of June, paid in advance, and never once complained about the damp. On Tuesday I went up to strip the bed and found his paper fan under the washstand, folded shut, its ribs gone the colour of weak tea.

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I opened it on the landing. Black lace-work covered every inch, tiny stars pricked in with a needle, and at its heart a red half-moon of painted ribs fanned out like a sunrise over the Downs. Then came the spatter: red dots flung across the paper as though someone had flicked a brush at the window glass and it had stuck. I pressed my thumb to one and it came away on my skin, still tacky. Mrs Hollis from number four says he painted at the end of the pier with his easel wedged against the rail, and that the gulls kept landing on his palette.

Yesterday the post boy brought a parcel addressed to the room. Inside was a tin of linseed oil and a note, which I have copied out for you: 'Keep the fan for the girl who sweeps the stairs. The red is from the lamp at Dungeness, the black from the nights I could not sleep. Do not let her open it in the sun.' I have not told Dora. She sweeps those stairs every morning and hums while she does it, badly, the way Father used to.

I shall give it to her on Saturday, her birthday, with the sunrise pointing up. She will want to know whether the red dots are real paint or something worse. I shall tell her they are rain, which, this coast being what it is, they very nearly were. Your sister, Edie.