Pencil sketch sheet of 24 circular abstract symbol designs, each labelled with a word such as peace, win, shield, sword, army or lose, on a beige background under the heading WAR AND PEACE.

War and peace symbol sketch sheet

Black and grey · Flash

A sheet of 24 pencil sketches of small circular designs arranged in four rows, each labelled with a single word such as peace, shield, sword, hero or lose. The drawings use fine, loose linework with some light shading and simple abstract shapes, including dots, lines, circles and figure-like marks. The sheet is entirely black and grey on a warm beige paper background, with the heading WAR AND PEACE across the top.

Peace Freedom Shield Sword

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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

Tom, the trams stopped running at eleven and the street has gone quiet enough that I can hear the gulls fighting over the bins down by the harbour. I've been at the board since then. Mr Pryce wants twenty-four small circles by Friday, each with one word lettered above it, for the sheet he's pinning in the window of the Quay Street shop. He calls it a catalogue for people who want to carry something without having to explain it. I've drawn peace three times and each time it came out looking like a pair of eyes with a frown underneath.

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The worst was lose. I sat with the pencil over the circle for an hour, thinking about how you draw the absence of something. In the end I put a heavy dot near the top and a thin line trailing off it, like a kite come down in a field. Mr Pryce looked at it and said it was too kind. I said it was the truth. The dot is you, the line is the telegram that never came, and the rest of the circle is empty on purpose.

Shield is a pentagon inside a ring, the way the old armourers marked their gear. Sword is a crescent with three rivets along its back. I gave soldier a single line running down through the middle, because nobody ever drew a soldier as anything but a line that keeps going. Truce is the one I like best: two circles touching at the rim, one with a notch cut out so the other can slip in. Mr Pryce says nobody will buy it. I told him that is exactly why it should be on the sheet.

The lamp is nearly out and the window has started to grey over the rooftops. I'm sending this with the sheet, folded inside the old atlas, so you have something to look at on the line that isn't a rifle. When you're back, come and find me before you go anywhere near the quay. Bring the drum with the broken skin. I want to draw the last circle with you watching, and I'll leave the word off it until you tell me what it should say.