Black sketched stack of books with coloured watercolour splashes in pink, green and blue, tattooed on the back of a hand.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Stacked books with watercolour splashes on a hand

Hand · Mixed · Photo

A stack of old-style books is drawn in black sketchy linework, with loose ink lines dripping down from the base. Soft watercolour splashes in pink, green, blue and yellow rise from the top of the stack and fade out at the edges. The tattoo sits on the back of a hand against a blue snowflake-patterned blanket.

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

Nobody on the eleventh floor had ever seen Mr Okafor read, which is why the pile outside flat fourteen caused such trouble. Mrs Dunning swore the books had appeared overnight: four hardbacks with split spines and a paperback held shut with a perished rubber band. She wanted them gone before the caretaker came round with his trolley.

Keep reading

Ruth Adair, who had lived above the bins for nineteen years and held opinions on most things, carried them down herself. Halfway across the car park she noticed the paper had gone soft, as though the books had sat out in rain, though the sky over the estate was clean. When she lifted the top cover, a smear of green rose from the pages like steam off a kettle, and it smelt of cut grass and lemons.

She left them on the table in the community room and forgot until knitting group, when Dami from the third floor asked why the colour was still moving. Pink crept along one edge, then blue, then a yellow that pooled in the gutter of the spine. By Thursday someone had pinned a note inside the door: Take one, leave one, mind the colours.

Nobody minded the colours. Ruth took the paperback home and opened it at her kitchen table, and the splashes spilled over the oilcloth and onto her hands, cool as rain. She read until the light went. The next morning every window on the eleventh floor had a faint wash of colour on its sill, and the stack in the community room was one book smaller, with a cracked spine missing from its bottom.

More like this

Colourful forearm tattoo of stacked books and an open book with sketched birds over rainbow watercolour splashes.
Stacked books and flying pages on a forearm
Black ink tattoo of a stack of books topped by a quill pen, placed on the ankle and lower leg.
Stacked books and quill on an ankle
Colour tattoo of an open book with black outline and watercolour splashes in pink, yellow, teal and orange on the forearm.
Open book with watercolour splashes
Fine line black tattoo of an open book above the word wanderer in script, on the inner wrist of a light-skinned arm.
Open book and wanderer on a wrist
Colourful sketch-style tattoo of a stack of books with small floating letters and watercolour splashes, on the forearm.
Stack of books with watercolour splashes on a forearm
Colour tattoo of a house lifted into the air by a bunch of multicoloured balloons on the outer thigh.
House lifted by balloons on a thigh
Black ink tattoo on a forearm of a stack of books with open pages lifting into a flock of birds, in a sketchy linework and shaded style.
Books turning into birds on a forearm
Traditional style tattoo of an open book with a pink heart and scrolls above, over a pink and blue flower with green leaves, on a forearm.
Open book and rose on a forearm
Colourful watercolour-style tattoo of an open book with galaxy smoke, crystals and flowers on the thigh.
Open book with galaxy smoke on thigh
Two hands pressed together showing a shaded grey open book tattoo across the back of the hands, with small outlined finger tattoos above.
Open book tattoo across two hands
Traditional style tattoo of an open red book with a gold spine and yellow flower on a teal ribbon, on a limb, with a partial green plant tattoo at the top left.
Traditional open book with flower
Watercolour style tattoo of stacked books, an open book and flying birds on a forearm, with rainbow colour washes and black linework.
Stacked books, open book and birds on a forearm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.