Small crescent moon tattoo on the inside of a wrist, shaded with purple, pink and blue galaxy tones against green foliage.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small galaxy crescent moon on a wrist

Forearm · Colour · Photo

A small crescent moon sits on the inner wrist, filled with a soft gradient of purple, pink and blue that suggests a night sky with fine speckles. The edges are smooth and the shading blends gently from deep violet at the top to bright blue at the lower curve. The tattoo is centred in a close photo, with blurred green leaves and bamboo filling the background.

Forearm Moon Crescent Galaxy Star Night sky

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 tarpaulin over my stall had sprung a leak by half six, so I was standing on an upturned crate, holding a saucepan lid under the drip, when Mr Okonedo came round the corner with his collar up and asked if I still had the blue. I said I had three blues. He said no, the one like the bottom of a swimming pool at night, the kind that goes on to something else.

Keep reading

I had a silk scarf in the back of the van, dyed in the vat I keep in the lock-up on Dunstan Road. I'd started it in March with indigo and let the madder come up through it, then dipped the corners twice so the top went deep violet and the bottom went bright as a gas flame. Most people walk past my stall without slowing. Mr Okonedo held it up under the bulb and didn't say anything for a while, just let the rain patter on the silk and bead off it.

His daughter is nine and has decided the moon is not a circle but a boat, and she wants it always a little thin, as if someone had taken a bite out of it. He wanted stars too. I dipped an old toothbrush in the silver I use for tinsel edging and flicked it across the purple, and the speckles caught the light the way they do on a real night when you've been outside too long and your eyes have adjusted.

He paid in coins, wet ones, and folded the scarf into a carrier bag with the care people use for letters. Before he went he said his daughter would want to know which part was dark. I told him the dark part is what makes the rest look like a moon at all, and he laughed and walked off into the rain holding the bag against his chest, one bright edge of blue showing at the top.