Abstract watercolour tattoo with red, purple and blue splashes and dark linework of a bird and a hand on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Abstract watercolour bird and hand on ribs

Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A photograph of a tattoo on the left side of a torso, with the arm raised. Two dark linework forms, one resembling a bird in flight and the other a hand or figure, sit over loose washes of red, purple and blue. The sketchy outlines and soft, bleeding colour give the piece an abstract, painterly look against the skin.

Find an artist for this

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

The kestrel will not come down to the glove unless the wind is wrong for it, and the wind has been wrong since Lammas. You stand on the broken lip of the curtain wall at Carrick Hollin with your arm raised and the leather gone stiff with rain, waiting for the bird to decide you are worth the trouble.

Keep reading

Below you the keep has lost its roof to a winter nobody bothered to record. Ivy has taken the chapel. Sheep graze in the room where the lord's clerk once counted tithes, and the only thing still hanging in the great hall is a rusted hook that catches the afternoon light, red as a coal. Your brother said the place was cursed. You told him curses are only weather that has been waiting longer.

The kestrel drops off the sill in one long fall, goes wide over the moat, then finds the thermal rising off the warm stones and climbs until it is nothing but a notch against a sun the colour of spilled wine. You do not chase it. You lower your arm slowly, flex your fingers, and listen to the bell of the village church that nobody has rung since the flood.

When the bird comes back it does not land on the glove. It settles on the wall beside your boot, folds its wings like a sealed letter, and waits. You crouch, open your palm flat on the stone, and let it step on. Whatever the castle kept, it has given back the one thing worth having: a hand that is not reaching for anything at all.

More like this

Fine line sketch of a standing figure with pink, purple and yellow watercolour washes on the side of the ribs.
Sketched figure with watercolour splashes on ribs
Close photograph of a watercolour-style tattoo of orange, pink, purple and teal splashes with black ink spatter, running from the thigh over the knee onto the calf.
Watercolour-style splashes across a leg
Watercolour-style abstract tattoo of orange, pink and blue splashes with black ink lines, running down a leg from thigh to calf.
Watercolour splash leg tattoo
Four views of an abstract watercolour-style forearm tattoo with black ink splatters and red and teal washes.
Abstract splatter forearm tattoo
Watercolour-style flower tattoo in purple, pink and blue with black linework across the shoulder and upper arm, with a thin stem trailing down the arm.
Watercolour flower on shoulder and upper arm
Abstract tattoo of a dark figure with pink and red blocks and a thin red line running down an upper arm.
Abstract figure and red line on upper arm
Two black magpies in mid-flight with blue ink splashes, shown on the upper thigh and outer thigh in a watercolour-inspired tattoo on bare skin.
Two magpies in splash style on thighs
Colourful watercolour-style tattoo of a wristwatch with red, blue and pink splashes and drips, sitting on the inner wrist and forearm.
Watercolour watch tattoo on a wrist
Watercolour style tattoo of a woman in profile with blue wash and pink flowers on the upper arm and shoulder.
Watercolour woman and flowers on upper arm
Colour tattoo of a woman's profile with dark hair on the side of the ribs, set in soft painted red, pink and teal washes.
Woman profile tattoo on the ribs
Realistic forearm tattoo of grey clouds and a mountain above blue water with hammerhead shark silhouettes.
Hammerhead sharks and clouds on a forearm
Fine line tattoo of a woman in profile with a black raven wing, red blush dots and blue hair shading, on the forearm.
Woman in profile with a raven on a forearm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.