Fine line black outline of a small elephant tattoo on a person's lower abdomen, just above the waistband of their jeans.

Small elephant outline on the lower abdomen

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A small elephant with its trunk raised is drawn in a thin, single black outline on the skin of the lower abdomen. The linework is clean and unshaded, with no fill or grey wash. The tattoo sits near the centre of the frame, with a checked flannel shirt above and blue jeans and a belt below.

Fine line Other Elephant Outline

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 whistle has gone for the afternoon shift, and the fairground elephant is standing in the lamp-room yard as though she has been booked for it. Dad says the showman paid the Co-op for the sheds before the bank took the rest. You are nine, and you have a heel of bread in your pocket that you took from the kitchen when nobody was looking.

Keep reading

Her name is Mabel, painted on the side of the wagon in red letters that have blistered in the rain. The keeper, a thin man with a moustache like a worn broom, lets you stand close enough to see the grey creases round her ear. When you hold out the bread she does not take it straight away. She lifts her trunk high and holds it there, the way the men lift a hand from the cage when they come up into daylight and want the others to know they are still counted.

Her trunk stays up. Then Dad calls across the yard, not angry, just tired, and you turn to answer him. When you look back the keeper is folding the canvas and Mabel is halfway down the lane with the wagon swaying behind her, and the only thing left is the bread, flattened where her foot stood.

Years later, with the pit shut and the wages stopped, you still lift a hand at the top of the stairs before you go down into anything new, just to tell whoever is waiting below that you are still here.