Realism tattoo of a woman's face with pink and white flowers and blue and orange butterflies on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Woman portrait with flowers and butterflies on ribs

Realism · Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A shaded black and grey portrait of a woman's face, with her eyes looking to the side, sits on the side of the torso. Soft, painterly pink, purple and white flowers rise up the left of the design, and a blue-green butterfly and an orange butterfly frame the face. The blended, airbrush-like shading and bright washes of colour fill the composition from top to bottom.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the kettle, it's been on since Tuesday and tastes of it. Now, you asked about the face on the cabin side of the Ellen Mott, and that's a story with a lock in it, so sit still. Her name was Mabel Quarrie, and she was the only passenger her brother Joss ever carried, though he never charged her a penny.

Keep reading

Joss was a signwriter from Stourport who couldn't keep a job on dry land. He painted boats the way other men drink, badly and all the time. The winter Mabel's husband went off with a dredging crew to Hull, Joss took the Ellen Mott up the Shropshire Union and painted her face on the cabin side, looking out past the tiller and the towpath, down the cut toward the lock where her husband would have come back if he'd come back. Every spring he laid a fresh wash of colour over her, pink and violet for the orchids he swore grew wild on those banks, and a blue butterfly for the Sunday she laughed so hard she spilt her milk.

The turn came in June. Joss died in his bunk with the window open, and the boat was sold to a couple from Leeds who wanted her painted over in cream. They got as far as the first coat. Then the butterflies came, hundreds of them, orange and blue, settling on the wet paint and refusing to be brushed off, so the men gave up and went for their dinner.

That's why she's still there, love. Nobody's touched the face since, and the eyes still go to the lock. Me? I reckon she's waiting for someone to tell her he isn't coming. Go on, drink your tea before it's cold like mine.

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