A single black line tattoo runs diagonally from the upper arm down the forearm, with a slight bend at the elbow, on a shirtless person in a dim room.

Single black line along the arm

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A single solid black line runs diagonally from the upper arm, across the bend of the elbow, and down toward the wrist. The line is uniform in weight with a slight kink where it crosses the elbow. The skin is pale and the background is dim and out of focus, with no other colour in the composition.

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

The chain was forty-one yards short when we reached the Tarrant brook, and Mr Oakes swore at the sky as though it had moved the stake. We had been told to run the line true from the Hollin stone to the sea wall, straight as a rule, and for nine miles it obeyed. Then the ground rose to meet us beside the churchyard of St Oswin, and the theodolite would not sight through the old yew.

Keep reading

Oakes wanted the yew cut down. The vicar wanted it left standing, and the dead left where they lay, which I thought a fair position, though I kept my opinion to myself and my boots in the mud. So we bent the line. I set a pin at the lych gate and another on the far side of the wall, and between them our survey now has a small shoulder that no printed map will show, a place where a straight thing agreed to step aside for a tree.

I think about that bend whenever I walk the county now. Surveyors are supposed to make the world exact, and I have spent my working life believing exactness was a kind of mercy. Yet the kink in that line is the only part of the whole job I would defend in front of anyone.

Mrs Pell at the lodge gave me a cup of tea and asked whether the line would hold. I told her it would hold for as long as the yew did. She laughed, and I wrote that down too, since it seemed the only true thing I had found all month.

More like this

Photo of a thin black single-line tattoo running diagonally from the upper arm down the forearm, with a dark cord at the wrist.
Single black line down an arm
Black barbed wire tattoo wrapping vertically around the upper arm of a person wearing a green top, with the arm raised and flexed.
Barbed wire band on upper arm
Black and grey tattoo of a lace-patterned garter band on a thigh, photographed in low, dark light with a hand resting on the leg.
Lace garter tattoo on a thigh
Black blackwork armband tattoo of geometric lines and solid bands wrapped around a forearm near the wrist, shown against a dark background.
Black geometric armband tattoo on a forearm
Close photo of a thin black fine line tattoo of two parallel bands wrapping around a forearm.
Double line band on a forearm
Close crop of a bold black tribal-style band with swirling curls across a man's lower abdomen above his jeans, in blackwork style.
Black tribal band across the lower abdomen
Close view of a black blackwork tattoo wrapped around a forearm near the wrist, with a lattice panel between solid bands, against a dark background.
Geometric blackwork band on forearm
Fine line black ink tattoo of a girl in a long dress flying a kite, placed on the side of the ribs.
Girl flying a kite on the ribs
Black ink tattoo of an open zipper running down a bare back along the spine, with the slider near the upper shoulder blades.
Open zipper tattoo down the spine
Close photo of a black fine line script tattoo reading grateful on the upper arm, with a rolled navy shirt sleeve above it.
Script word "grateful" on upper arm
Black fine line geometric tattoo of crossing lines radiating around a central circle on a forearm and elbow.
Geometric line tattoo wrapping an elbow
Close view of a pale, white-ink style scrolling filigree tattoo across a bare shoulder, upper back and upper arm.
Pale swirling filigree on shoulder and arm

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