Painterly tattoo of an abstract animal head in blue, green and yellow with red splashes, on the outer calf.

Abstract animal head on a calf

Other · Colour · Photo

A loose, abstract animal head fills the calf, with pointed ears suggested by yellow and black shapes. The linework is largely absent, with soft blue and green washes, black smudged strokes and scattered splatter. Colour is concentrated in blue, green and yellow with small red drips at the lower edge, against plain skin and a light sofa in the background.

Other Animal head Abstract Splatter Ear

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The canvas came down on a Tuesday, and by the Thursday the only thing still standing on the field at Hatherley was the banner with the fox on it. Mr Abernethy had the ladder against the pole and a bucket of thinned blue at his feet. You were meant to be loading the last lorry, but he waved you over and told you to leave the face alone. Foxes, he said, always come back to a field that has seen them once.

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He had painted the head himself in spring, back when the tent still sold out on Saturdays. Washes first, green bleeding into sky, then black smudged on with a rag while the paint was wet. The ears he had kept for last, yellow for the lamplight. His wrist would not hold a line any more, so he handed you the small brush and let you do the edges, and you flicked a few red drips from the bottom rim because the tent had been bleeding colour all month and nobody had the heart to scrub it off.

When the last car pulled out, the field went quiet in the way only empty ground can. Somebody's dog barked at the gate. The ringmaster's girl sat on a crate with her shoes in her lap, saying nothing, and Mr Abernethy went to sit beside her with his jacket open against the wind. You stayed on the ladder longer than you needed to. The banner lifted and fell, lifted and fell, and in the last of the light the painted fox seemed to tip its head towards the road where the lorries had gone.

You came down with blue on your knuckles and left the bucket for whoever came next. It was not until the gate was shut behind you that you noticed the red had dried into the shape of a paw print on your palm, and you did not wipe it off.