Close view of a woman's upper arm with two solid black blackwork bands tattooed around it, with a grey t-shirt and one hand resting on her hip.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two solid black bands on upper arm

Blackwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The image shows a person's arm, cropped so that no face is visible, with two solid black bands wrapped fully around the upper arm. The bands are bold, smooth and evenly spaced, with clean edges and no shading or fine detail. The ink is black on a neutral background of pale walls, and the composition is simple, with the arm bent and the hand resting on the hip.

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

Mr Adair kept the ship's ink in a tin marked for the sail-maker, and on the long run south he used it to paint two black bands around the upper arm of any hand who had stood a watch on the fore-yard in a blow. One band for the first time aloft in weather. Two for the second. Nobody on the Halcyon Gull wore three, because Mr Adair said a third band was a man counting his own funeral.

Keep reading

I had none when we raised the Falklands. I was the cook's girl, which meant I scrubbed the coppers and carried the slops, and I had never once climbed higher than the galley hatch. What I had instead was the bosun's tally, a knotted cord he let me keep because I could add faster than he could. Every night I ran my thumb along the knots and told myself the sum was right.

On the night off the Horn the mainsail split, and young Pell went up into the dark with a lantern in his teeth. He came down with his hands bleeding and a grin nobody believed. Mr Adair took his arm, looked at it under the lamp, and then, without a word, he looked at me. I had been holding the lantern. I had not climbed. But the cord in my pocket had the right number of knots, and the bosun had seen me count them.

He painted two bands on my arm in the galley that night, steady as a ruled line, and told me to keep my sleeve down until we were in the Sound. I did not. In Port Stanley I rolled it up on the quay and watched the gulls. The bands had dried to the colour of old tar, two clean stripes with nothing between them but skin, and I thought that was about as honest a thing as the sea had ever given me.

More like this

Close view of a black band tattoo set around a forearm, with one thick line above two thinner lines, in a blackwork and geometric style.
Black bands around a forearm
Black and grey blackwork cuff tattoo on a forearm, with solid black bands and thin geometric triangle lines near the wrist.
Black band cuff with geometric lines on wrist
Black and grey forearm tattoo of a thin solid line above a dotwork band that fades into the skin, shown on the inner forearm of a person in a black top.
Dotwork and fine line armband on a forearm
Close-up of a forearm with two thin solid black bands tattooed fully around it, with a grey sweater sleeve pushed up above.
Two black bands on a forearm
Black and white photo of a forearm with two thin solid black bands tattooed around it, below a pushed-up grey sweatshirt sleeve.
Two black bands on a forearm
Two fine black parallel lines tattooed in a band around a person's inner forearm, near the wrist, against a brown backdrop.
Two thin bands around a forearm
Black and grey fine line eye inside a triangle with small text around it on the upper arm, and 'be strong girl' lettering on the ribs.
Eye in triangle and 'be strong girl' lettering
Black and grey botanical bouquet tattoo on the upper arm of a woman wearing a grey vest top.
Monochrome floral bouquet on an upper arm
Four thin black parallel lines wrap around a woman's forearm near the elbow, in a fine line geometric style, with a rolled-up plaid shirt sleeve.
Four thin black lines around a forearm
Three forearms against a black background, each with two solid black bands tattooed around the forearm in a blackwork style with brushed, uneven edges.
Double black bands on three forearms
Black and white photo of a forearm with three thin black parallel lines tattooed around it, forming a simple armband effect.
Three thin black bands around a forearm
Full arm sleeve of fine white ink ornamental patterns on a woman's arm from shoulder to wrist, with a white halter top.
White ink sleeve tattoo on an arm

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