Colour and grey forearm tattoo of a red rose, treble clef, musical notes and a vintage microphone, in a neo-traditional style with shaded detail.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Rose, microphone and music notes on a forearm

Neo-trad · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo combines a large red rose with a white treble clef and a few musical notes that rise across the forearm. Beside them, a vintage microphone is shaded in black and grey with a staff of music lines behind it. The red rose is shaded with deep reds and dark edges, while the microphone uses smooth grey tones and bold outlines, and the dark background keeps the arm in focus.

Neo-trad Realism Forearm Rose Microphone Treble clef Music note Musical staff

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

Nobody in Hollin Dale had sung in tune since the bell tower fell, so when the carrier brought up a brass-cased microphone wrapped in a flour sack, the children came running to see what it was for. Mother Pell, who kept the bees and had opinions about everything, set it on the chapel wall and said it wanted a voice before it would be any use to anyone.

Keep reading

Her grandson Tobias tried first. He sang the hymn about the sheep and the shepherd, and the microphone gave back nothing but a hiss, like a kettle thinking about boiling. He tried again with the lullaby his mother had hummed. Still hiss. The rooks on the roof stayed put, which Mother Pell said was the most honest response anyone had made all week.

Then Ada Coyle, who had not spoken above a murmur since her husband went down the pit, walked up the lane with a red rose pinned to her coat. She did not sing the hymn. She sang the notes the old music master had scratched on the chapel door before the flood, the ones nobody could read any more, climbing one after another like swallows getting up off a wire. The microphone took them, the valley answered, and somewhere below the hill a pit cage stopped creaking.

Nobody could say afterwards whether the rose had done it, or the notes, or the woman. Mother Pell kept the microphone, the rose withered on the chapel step, and every spring the children still come up the lane to hear someone sing the old notes into the brass.