Woman seen from behind on a beach with a fine line black wave tattoo on her upper back, between the shoulder blades.

Small wave tattoo on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman stands with her back to the camera on a sandy beach, with both hands behind her head and a pink string bikini top. A small fine line tattoo of two stylised waves sits on her upper back, close to the spine, drawn in thin dark ink with no shading. The turquoise sea and cloudy sky fill the background, and the image is in full colour apart from the black tattoo.

Fine line Back Wave Sea Beach Bikini

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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

You take the stairs because the lift at Carrick House has been out since spring, and the council letter says the flat must be cleared by Friday. Eleven flights with a bin bag over your shoulder, the stairwell smelling of bleach and somebody's Sunday fry-up. On each landing a slatted window shows you a strip of grey sea between the flats opposite, then hides it again.

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Nan's door on the fourteenth floor is already unlocked, which means Mrs Okafor from number nine has been in again. Inside, the carpet still holds the square shapes of the settee. Her cardigans hang on the back of the kitchen door like people waiting to be called. On the windowsill sits the tin of buttons she never let you touch, and tucked under it is a bus timetable folded into a tight pattern, the creases worn so soft they feel like cloth.

You once told her the sea was the only thing in Hastings worth looking at. She said that was rubbish, you only had to be high enough to see it moving. You open the window. The wind comes in smelling of salt and diesel, and a pair of gulls tilt past the level of the block, riding a current that doesn't need anyone to hold it up.

You unfold the timetable. On the back, in her biro, she has drawn two small wave lines, neat as stitching, and written underneath: take the stairs, love, the view's better on the way down. You laugh, then you don't, and you pick up the bin bag and start with the buttons.