Hand-drawn orange seahorse with a black outline and a blue wash behind it, with rising bubbles above, on the forearm near the elbow.

Seahorse with bubbles on a forearm

Forearm · Colour · Photo

A cartoon-style seahorse in orange with a black ink outline sits on the forearm, with a loose blue wash behind it and a cluster of outlined bubbles rising above its head. The linework is simple and hand-drawn, and the fills are soft and uneven rather than solid. The orange and blue ink dominate the composition, with the photo focused on the arm and the tattoo against a blurred background.

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

Keep your hands in the twine and stop looking at the gulls, because I am only going to tell this once and you were not born when it happened. Nessa was eleven that summer, and she had a tin of orange enamel from Harrison's chandlery and one brush with three hairs left in it. She painted a seahorse on the bottom board of our father's coble, right where the water would have to get past it first, and she gave it a blue sea to swim in by smudging the wash with her thumb until her thumb was blue too.

Keep reading

Father laughed at her and said the fish would only bring bad luck, the sea being particular about what it was told. She drew the bubbles anyway, a whole crown of them, with the blunt end of a matchstick, and told him seahorses were the fathers of the sea. The mothers lay their eggs and the fathers carry them about in a pouch until they hatch, which is more than most men in this harbour managed.

That October the wind came round to the north-east and we were caught off the Dogger with the nets still wet. The coble took a sea over the bow, the thwart came loose, and I went over the side with the tiller still in my fist. When they hauled the boat up the slip the next morning, the seahorse was the only thing on her the water had not taken, and Father put his hand flat on it the way you'd touch a sleeping dog. He never painted over it. Ask any man on the slip and he'll tell you that's the boat that brought us home.

More like this

Two photographs of forearm tattoos: a blue bird among green leaves on the left, and an orange seahorse with a blue wash and dotted bubbles near the elbow on the right.
Bird and seahorse tattoos on forearms
Blue shaded tattoo of a crested bird on a branch beside a floral scroll design, on the forearm of a person wearing a light blue denim shirt.
Blue bird and floral scrollwork on forearm
Small colour anchor tattoo on the inner forearm near the wrist, outlined in dark blue with yellow, red and green accents in a traditional style.
Anchor tattoo on a forearm
Black linework tattoo of two clasped hands on the upper arm, with a dark grey t-shirt sleeve in the frame.
Clasped hands on the upper arm
Fine line blue jellyfish tattoo with dotwork dots and a line of script on a woman's upper arm.
Blue jellyfish on an upper arm
Fine line botanical tattoo of a tree with spreading roots and a curled swirl on a forearm, in dark blue-black ink.
Tree and swirl design on a forearm
Colour tattoo of a blue police box with flames, swirls and a yellow starburst across the upper arm and shoulder.
TARDIS and flames on upper arm
Fine line black ink tattoo of roses, buds and leafy sprigs along a forearm, shown against a plain white wall.
Black line roses and foliage on a forearm
Three green, orange and red butterflies with black outlines in a traditional style, sitting on the inside of a wrist against a dark green background.
Three butterflies on a wrist
Colour tattoo on a forearm of a small climbing figure on a rope, surrounded by blue and green watercolour washes, with the hand raised against a blurred green background.
Climber and watercolour splashes on a forearm
Close photo of a colourful traditional-style teepee and campfire tattoo on a forearm, with black leaf linework above.
Teepee and campfire on a forearm
Black and grey tattoo of a mechanical bird with gears and a winding key on the inner forearm of a person wearing a rolled denim shirt.
Mechanical bird on a forearm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.