Black and grey fine line tattoo of three stacked chevron arrows on the skin behind an ear, beside several ear piercings.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three chevrons behind the ear

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

Three small black chevrons point upwards in a vertical stack on the skin behind the ear. The lines are thin and even, with solid black ink and no shading. The black and white photograph is taken close up, with the ear and piercings on the right and loose hair framing the left.

Fine line Geometric Other Chevron Arrow Ear

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

Nell was the only one left who would climb the Starling. The rest of the crew had gone quiet about the wheel since the spring, when Hobb the rigger came off the third carriage and lay in the mud with his hat still on. So when the axle began to shriek on the second night at Coldbeck, the showman sent for her, and she went up the spokes with a tin of grease knotted to her belt.

Keep reading

Somebody long dead had painted three red chevrons on the hub, pointing upward, the way the old travelling crews marked a sound spoke. The old men said they meant up, up, up, and never down. Nell had always taken it for a joke. Halfway up, with the fairground lights shrinking below her into little coloured coins, she found the chevrons were the only thing on the wheel that had not rusted through.

At the top the axle was dry as bread. She worked the grease in with her fingers while the wind leaned on the carriage and a starling sat on the bar a foot from her hand, watching her as though she owed it money. When she was done it lifted off and flew down the spokes ahead of her, dipping at each one, and she understood that it was showing her the way. She went down after it, slow, reading the marks as she passed them.

The showman paid her a single silver penny and a paper twist of toffee, and asked if the wheel would hold. She said it would. That night, with her palms black and sticky, she took a pot of red paint from the wagon and added a fourth chevron to the hub, pointing up, for whoever came after.