Black and grey traditional tattoo of a woman in a sailor cap beside an anchor, on the upper arm of a woman with long brown hair.

Sailor woman tattoo on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A woman in a black lace bra rests one hand on her shoulder, showing a large tattoo on her upper arm of a woman wearing a sailor cap, with a small anchor above her head. The bold outlines and shaded hair are rendered in black and grey ink, with a small crescent moon tattooed on one finger. The subject is cropped at the chin, and the plain white background keeps the focus on the tattoo.

Traditional Upper arm Hand Sailor Woman Anchor Crescent moon Portrait Hair

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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

The last of the Bramley windfalls had gone soft in the long grass, and your mother was already dragging the ladders round to the wall when the post van turned in at the gate. Nothing came by post in September except bills and seed catalogues, so you ran, wiping your hands on your jeans, and the driver held out a parcel tied with twine and a card in Aunt Nell's square capitals.

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Nell had gone to sea at seventeen on a coaster out of Avonmouth and come back twice as hard and half as talkative, with an anchor inked on her arm that she showed to nobody but the dog. She taught you to pick without bruising, to hold the canvas bag against your hip like a bell rope, and to count the rows aloud so the wasps lost interest. The card said only: Keep the old cap dry. Don't let your mother hang it on the hook by the back door. It has done enough hanging.

Inside, under tissue paper, the cap was navy wool gone grey at the peak, a brass button still stitched to the crown. It was too big. You pulled it on anyway and walked down between the trees, and the light came through the leaves the way Nell always said the sea did, green going to gold, the apples knocking softly into the grass like buoys nudging a mooring.

By dusk you had filled eleven bags and your mother had stopped pretending not to watch. You climbed the ladder with the cap tipped low, counting aloud, and from the top you could see the road, the church tower and the far grey line of the estuary where Nell's coaster once turned for home. You called out the number. Somewhere beyond it, a horn answered, or you decided it did.