Back of a neck showing a small grey line-drawn figure tattoo below the hairline, beside a shaved geometric undercut pattern.

Small grey neck tattoo beside an undercut

Neck · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows the back of a person's head and neck in a salon, with dark hair pulled up into a ponytail. A small grey tattoo of a figure-like design sits on the nape of the neck, drawn in fine outlines with light grey shading. The shaved undercut above it has a web-like geometric pattern, and the tattoo is the only ink visible.

Neck Figure Geometric pattern

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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 Ruth, you will laugh, but the Pollard girl came in again on Thursday wanting the net loft wall cut into the back of her hair. I told her clippers were never made for lace, and she said that was rather the point, so I went at it with the fine blade and the number one guard. Mrs Abbot from the chandlery says the two of us are making a scandal, but Mrs Abbot has worn the same bun since the Coronation, so I do not weigh her opinion heavily.

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The pattern is simple enough once you have the eye. I learned it from old Tobias Greer, who mended nets on the quay for forty years and used to sketch knots on the back of my order slips with the stub of a carpenter's pencil. Diamonds overlapping, each one closed off by a little bar where the twine doubles back. I cut them in one line at a time, holding my breath as if threading a needle in a gale.

Below the shaving she wanted a figure no bigger than a thumbnail, arms raised as though hauling the last of the catch over the side. I drew it first on an order slip, and she pencilled the rope in herself. It is grey rather than blue and looks like a sketch left out in the rain, which I think suits the harbour better than colour would.

Tobias died in March. Last week his grandson brought round a tin of his old net needles and asked whether I would take them. I said I would take anything with a good point on it. Tell Father the strop needs oiling and I have finally bought that second chair. Your loving brother, Len.