Fine line black and grey tattoo of a curling wave inside a circle, placed on the inner forearm.

Small circular wave on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small circular tattoo shows a curling wave with a sharp crest, layered foam and fine spray droplets that trail off toward the edge of the circle. The linework is thin and precise, with stippled and hatched shading that gives the water depth and volume. The design is in black ink and grey tones on pale skin, set against a plain light background with a dark sleeve at the left edge.

Fine line Japanese Forearm Wave Circle Water

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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

Dear Ada, the sea has been behaving itself since the gale, though the stone steps down to the cove are green and treacherous, so mind them when you come in August. I found your tin of pencils under the settle where you left them, and I have been using the blunt grey one to sketch the swell from the gallery rail each morning, the way you taught me to draw water by hatching the troughs and leaving the crests bare. Mrs Pellow says I am wasting good paper, but she said the same about your drawings and kept every one.

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Yesterday a wave came in from the west that I would have sworn was the same one that took the Mary Ann off the Scarrow bar in 1911. It rose up against the breakwater like a dog getting to its hind legs, and the top of it curled and hung there, and then it broke so that the spray stood in the air in a loose cloud, each drop catching the light before it fell. I counted nineteen of them before they dissolved. I thought of your hand moving across the page, flicking the little dots out toward the margin, and I laughed out loud on the rocks like a fool.

The boat from Penzance is due Thursday. If you are on it, bring the good ink. I have kept the cove stairs swept and the kettle on, and I have left the window of the east room unlatched so that you can hear the water when you wake. Come and draw the wave with me before the autumn takes it away.

Yours, always, Tom