Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a snarling wolf head with bared teeth and smoky clouds, on the inner forearm.

Snarling wolf head on a forearm

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A snarling wolf head with bared teeth fills the forearm, shown in profile with its muzzle pointing towards the wrist. The fur is built from fine hatching and stippled dots, and soft grey shading gives the face and cheek volume. Dark smoke or cloud shapes surround the head against the pale skin, and the photograph is taken straight on against a plain light wall.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the smoke from the smokehouses has got into everything again, the nets, the loaves, the hem of my good coat. Mother says it will wash out by Whitsun. I have stopped believing her about anything that washes out.

Keep reading

Ansel Gorse finished the wolf on the bow of the Mirren last Thursday, the week before the fog came in off the Sound. You will remember he carved it from a single length of elm and then spent a month rubbing soot into the grain so the fur would show. Its jaw is open, teeth bared at the water, and when the lamp hits it from the quay it looks like it is about to bite the harbour in half.

The night the fog came, Father had the lads ready to go out for the mackerel anyway. They could not see the mole light, only the sound of the bell buoy. Father stood at the wheel with his hand on the bow rail and said the wolf was growling, and Harry Penhale laughed at him until the boat lurched and the bow swung hard to port. Ten yards ahead, black rock came up out of the white like a row of broken teeth.

We did not drown. Father swears the wolf turned us, and Ansel only shrugs and says it was the tide. I walked down this morning and found him on the quay scraping at the figurehead with a bit of glass, very gently, around the fangs. Come home at Whitsun and see it for yourself. I think he has made it look a little less hungry, and I am not sure that is a kindness.

Love, Edie

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