Neo-traditional tattoo of a whale filled with mountains, forest and a sunset, framed by flowers on the upper arm, shown from two angles.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Whale, landscape and flowers on upper arm

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A whale silhouette fills the upper arm, with mountains, pine trees and an orange and pink sunset sitting inside its body. Flowers and leaves surround the whale, and a dotted mandala-style motif appears in the shoulder area. The image shows two angles side by side, with bold black outlines, solid fills and grey shading on the whale, and bright colour in the flowers and landscape.

Neo-trad Dotwork Upper arm Whale Flower Mountain Forest Sunset Landscape Mandala Leaves

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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 kettle has boiled dry twice this morning because I keep going to the rail instead of watching it, and Cook says if I burn another pan he will take the cost out of my wages. So forgive the smudges. We raised a humpback off the starboard quarter at first light, its back crusted with barnacles like a cobbled yard, and the boats were away before the mate had finished his tea.

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I was sent up with the lard tins and stood holding the rope, and that is where I saw it. When the whale rolled, the wet grey of its back caught the early sun and turned soft and blue, and along the flank I could have sworn there were mountains, their peaks white at the top, with a line of dark pines marching down to the water. Above them a sunset came up orange and pink, the colour of the marmalade we had on Sunday. Bill Harker, who has sailed three of these voyages, said it was only the light playing tricks on a tired man. Then the whale lifted its tail and a ring of pale, round shapes showed on its shoulder, like a flower opening with a dot at its heart, and nobody on the rail said a word.

The mate called the boats back in before the second iron was thrown. Nobody argued. We had the casks we needed and a good deal of quiet in the galley that evening, and I found myself drawing the landscape on the back of the bill of fare with a stub of pencil, flowers round the edge the way the whale had them.

I have pinned it above the stove, where the steam curls the corners up. Come and see it when I'm home, and bring the good tea, the kind you save for visitors.