Fine line white ink ornamental tattoo running vertically down the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Vertical white ink ornament on ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A tall, symmetrical ornamental design in pale white ink runs vertically over the side of the ribcage. The linework is fine and uniform, with scrolls, loops and a central diamond motif stacked along a slim central line. The soft skin tone and even lighting keep the pale ink visible, with the composition filling the frame from top to bottom.

Fine line Ribs Ornament Filigree Knotwork White ink

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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

Dear Nell, the tide has been out so long the boats sit on the mud like tired dogs, and I have spent three days at the bench with the finest wire. Mr Pardoe finally let me draw the pattern for the Halloran clasp myself: the tall one, with scrolls rising up either side of a central line and a small diamond at the middle where the stone goes. He stood behind me with his pipe unlit and said nothing for an hour, which from him is praise.

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The trouble is that I drew it from memory of the old sampler in the back drawer, the one with the brown stain like a thumbprint. I did not think much of that until I laid the drawing on the bench and saw the loops lift like a sail being hauled. My hand had made it symmetrical without asking me. Every curl on the left answers the one on the right, and the line runs down the middle as straight as a mast.

Yesterday Mrs Halloran came in to be measured for the clasp. She looked at the drawing for a long time and asked who had stitched the sampler. I said I didn't know. She said her mother had worked it on the voyage out, with thread bought from a ship that never came back into port, and that the diamond was meant to stay empty until the one who wore it came home.

So I have left the diamond open on the drawing. Mr Pardoe says a clasp with no stone is a fault. I told him it is a promise, and he laughed and took his pipe outside to light it. Write when the wind turns, and tell me whether the gulls still fight over the fish heads at the slipway.