Fine line white-ink treble clef tattoo on the inner wrist and lower forearm of a light-skinned arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Treble clef on the wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A single treble clef is tattooed on the lower forearm near the wrist, shown in pale, almost white ink that stands out softly against the skin. The linework is thin and even, with a clean curl at the top and a tail that extends below the bottom loop. The background is a neutral skin tone with a tiled surface to the right, and the photograph is taken close up with soft light.

Fine line Forearm Treble clef Music Wrist

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

In the kingdom of Lessary the bells stopped ringing the year the old queen died, and nobody could say why. The ringers sat idle in the cathedral tower with their ropes coiled on the flags. The king sent for every copyist in the realm, reasoning that a king who cannot hear the hours cannot rule them.

Keep reading

Among the copyists came Maud Tallow, who wrote out hymns for the monks at Ferrin Abbey and had cramp in both hands by the third page. She noticed that every scribe before her had drawn a strange sign at the head of the staff, a curl like a letter G that swallowed its own tail. Her master called it the key of the high voices. Maud asked what it opened. He said it opened nothing. It only told the singer where to find the note.

That night she drew the sign on the inside of her arm with lead white, since lamp-black looked too harsh on paper. At dawn she climbed the bell tower and sang the lowest note she could manage, then the highest, following the curl up and around as the old master had taught her. The rope stirred. The great bell swung once, then again, and the sound rolled out over the frozen water meadows to the sea.

The king offered her a purse of silver and a post for life, which she refused. She asked only that the ringers be taught the sign, so that no one would ever have to ask what it was for. The sign is still cut above every choir stall in Lessary, and the bell still rings for anyone who knows where to begin.