Back view of both legs with a black and grey woodcut-style tattoo of a sailing ship on the sea beneath clouds and sunrays, running from the thighs to the calves, in a Blackwork style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Woodcut-style ship scene on both legs

Blackwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

The image shows the backs of two legs, mirrored side by side, with black bands at the top of each thigh and bottom of each calf. Between the bands is a woodcut-style scene of a sailing ship on rolling waves, with clouds, radiating sunrays and horizontal engraved lines across the sky. The tattoo is rendered in black ink and grey tones on pale skin against a light grey backdrop.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The block for the Sea Maid came back from the printer this morning with ink still bleeding at its edges, and Mr Pryce wants it turned. He says the broadsides sell better when the ship sails left to right, the way the eye expects, so I must cut the whole scene again from the reverse. I told him a true woodcut cannot be argued into a mirror. He told me the wood does not care what I believe.

So I have spent three nights with the boxwood under the lamp, carving the rays backward. The sun is the cruellest part. You cut the light away, so every white line has to be cleared of black with a gouge no wider than a hair, and if the wrist slips the whole dawn goes grey. On Tuesday I lost the top of the mainmast and had to plane a fresh strip and glue it in. Pryce will charge me for the wood, and he will not charge himself for the hour.

What I keep thinking about is how a print is only ever the reverse of the wood. Every line I leave uncut prints black, and every line I cut prints as sky. Your father told me the secret of the trade was knowing what to leave alone. I have spent my life making the sea out of the parts I did not touch.

Come on Sunday and bring the girl. Hold the finished sheet up to the window and look at it from the back. The ship will be sailing towards you the way it always did, and nobody on the quay will know the difference. Yours, Tom

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