A thin black horizontal brushstroke tattoo sits on the upper back near the neck of a woman in a white top with red trim.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Single black brushstroke line on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

The photo shows a single tapered black line on the upper back, just below the nape of the neck. The stroke is solid and slightly thicker on the left, narrowing to a fine point on the right, and reads like a brush mark. The black ink stands out against the skin, which shows light freckles, while the white top with red embroidered trim sits in the frame. The camera is positioned behind the subject, whose head is turned away, with the tattoo placed centrally in the composition.

Back Line Brushstroke

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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

Mr Pryce won't let you touch the shop window until you have spent a whole month on old newspaper. Every morning in the back room on Market Street you dip the liner brush, wipe it against the lip of the jar, and draw a line across the sheet. He says a line is the only thing a sign-writer owns outright, because nobody can fix it afterwards. The lines you made in March lie in the drawer under the bench, curling at the edges, and he will not let you throw them away.

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By June your strokes have stopped wobbling, but he still shakes his head. 'You're thinking about the end of it,' he says, tapping a page where your hand has gone heavy at the tail. 'Lay it in one breath. Let the brush do the thinking.' You try it with the bus timetable pinned above the bench, with the kettle hissing, with Mrs Lowe from the post office rapping on the glass for her box of gold leaf. Each time the ink runs thick where you pressed, then thins to nothing, and each time he sighs.

The morning of the Coronation fête, the chemist's order is late and the frame is still bare. Pryce has gone to the dentist in Ashford. You load the brush, tip it, and stop, waiting for his voice. Nothing comes. You draw one stroke along the bottom of the glass, slow at first, then letting go the way the river goes round the mill wheel. It lifts off clean at the end, a fine point like a dropped feather.

When he returns he stands on the pavement with his hat in both hands for a long minute. Then he nods once, goes inside, and fetches the tin of white for the lettering, which you will still be learning to do for years.