Watercolour-style tattoo of two footprints in pink, purple, blue and teal with yellow splashes, on the inner upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two watercolour footprints on an upper arm

Upper arm · Colour · Photo

Two footprint shapes sit side by side on the inner arm, filled with soft washes of pink, purple, blue and teal. Loose splatters and fine dotted spray surround the prints, and a small yellow wash appears above the left one. The soft, blended colour and open edges give the piece a painted watercolour look against plain skin.

Upper arm Footprint Feet Splashes Splatter Watercolour wash

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The sprinkler had been ticking round the lawn since breakfast, and by eleven the flagstones behind Gran's greenhouse were slick and dark as slate. Pip and Nell had been told twice to keep off them. Naturally they kicked their sandals off and ran, and I stood at the kitchen window with a tea towel over my shoulder and watched two sets of small feet print themselves across the stone, each step drying in the sun before the next one landed.

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By the time Gran came out with her paint box, the prints had gone the grey of old pennies at the edges. She knelt on a folded sack, dipped her brush in the rainwater butt and worked the colour in without going over the lines. Pink for Pip, who had hopped. Blue for Nell, who had stamped in the puddle by the tap until the soles of her feet matched the pond. Every time a drop flicked off the sprinkler she laughed and said the garden was adding its own signature, and she let the splashes sit where they fell.

Pip asked why the yellow patch was above the left print and not beside it. Gran said that was where a dandelion clock had burst on her hat, which I did not believe, but nobody argued. The twins were called in for lunch and the flags began to steam.

That evening I went out with the hose to wash the paint away, and found I could not bring myself to do it. The colours had soaked into the grain of the stone and gone faint and clear, the way the tide leaves a gull's wing on wet sand. I left them there, the blue one lingering longest, until the next rain came and the garden finished the job on its own.