Colour tattoo of a woman with sugar skull face paint and a finger to her lips, with a green feather at the edge, shown on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Sugar skull woman with finger to lips on forearm

Realism · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A woman with long red hair wears sugar skull face paint, with a purple nose, red floral rosettes around the eyes and scrollwork across the cheeks and brow. Her index finger rests against her lips in a hushing gesture, and a green feather appears at the left edge. Smooth shading and blended skin tones give the portrait a realistic finish, with the red, purple and green inks standing out against the warm skin.

Realism Forearm Woman Sugar skull Day of the dead Feather Floral Red hair Portrait Scrollwork

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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

The lamp above the snooker table throws its yellow over the painted face Mrs Pugh has made for Auntie Nan, and you are told to keep your mouth shut about it. Every year on the second of November the institute doors stay locked until the last shift has signed off, and the women come in with greasepaint and candles and sit where the men once sat with their pints. You are fourteen and have been promised you can stay up if you do not talk.

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Mrs Pugh sets a green jay feather beside the candle and tells you it belonged to Dai Hopkins, who went down the number three shaft in 1921 and was never brought up. Hush, she says, and presses one finger to her lips, the way the painted skull does, with its purple nose and red roses ringing the eyes. The names are read only in silence. Nobody says them aloud on the street, because the company still owns the street.

When the candle gutters, the room goes quiet in the proper way, and Mrs Pugh lifts the feather and pins it to your collar. Now you carry him, she says. You want to ask what happens if you speak. Outside a train shunts on the bank, coal dust settles on the window like a second skin, and you understand the hush was never meant to keep the dead quiet. It was meant to keep you listening.