Wolf Clock Tattoo

Clocks have always meant the same thing

Pocket watches and clock faces are among the oldest subjects in tattoo work, older than most of what people think of as traditional imagery, and the meaning has never really shifted.

Time passing, and the fact that it does not stop. Sailors wore them, soldiers wore them, and they turn up in the earliest flash sheets that survive.

Often the hands are set deliberately: a birth, a death, an hour that mattered. A clock tattoo is usually a date in disguise.

Paired with a wolf

Which is where this design gets interesting. The wolf lives entirely in the present and has no idea any of this is happening; it does not count anything, mark anything or dread anything.

Putting the two together is a decent joke at our own expense, and a better one than most symbolic pairings manage.

The tattoo

The wolf faces straight out, drawn in soft black and grey, and it has odd eyes: one pale blue, one amber. Behind its ears sits a Roman numeral clock face with the hands still on it, half lost in smoke, and below the muzzle the whole thing breaks down into smoke, drips and spatter.

9.2 x 20 cm, long and narrow, so it suits a forearm, a calf, an outer thigh or the line beside the spine.

Vertical designs on vertical limbs always look deliberate; the same piece across a shoulder looks like it landed there.

See the wolf temporary tattoo range.

Free worldwide shipping, 7 to 12 business days. 30 day returns. See our shipping policy for details.