Realism tattoo of a woman with sugar skull face paint, blue eyes and red lips, shaded in grey on the forearm.

Sugar skull woman portrait on forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A woman's face is tattooed on the inner forearm with sugar skull face paint: dark eye sockets, a skull-shaped nose and ornamental scrollwork across the cheeks and jaw. The portrait uses soft grey shading with smooth blending, while the bright blue irises and red lips add colour. The face fills the centre of the frame, with a partial black geometric tattoo visible at the bottom edge.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ines,

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The snow has sealed the Hollin Pass since Tuesday, so the coach will not bring the paint you asked for, and I have been mixing the black from soot and gum arabic on the back step like a monk. Mrs Carrow, who keeps the inn, thinks I have gone mad. Perhaps I have. Each night, once the supper dishes are cleared, I sit by the range and paint a woman's face onto spare card, starting with the eyes because they are the hardest to get right.

You always said I could never hold a likeness, Ines. The girl I drew tonight had a mouth like a split plum and eyes the blue of a gas flame, and the paint would not carry that colour no matter how often I thinned it. So I am learning to lay the skull over her as lightly as frost, tracing scrolls across the cheeks the way Mother did when we left marigolds on the step for the feast of the dead.

Here is the strange part. Yesterday the inn was full of stranded drovers and a surveyor who would not stop talking about rail gauges. This morning there are only three of us left, and the girl on the card has become the most patient guest in the house. I finish a line and she seems to wait for the next one. I know that is nonsense. Still, I mean to finish her before the thaw, so that whoever comes up the pass in spring finds her waiting in the hall.

Write soon, if the post gets through. Tell Father the hens are laying again.

Your loving brother, Tomas

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