Red pencil sketch of an arrow passing through a ribbon bow, drawn on a sketchbook page as a tattoo design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Arrow and ribbon bow sketch

Colour · Flash

A hand-drawn sketch in red pencil shows an arrow running diagonally across the page, with a large ribbon bow tied at its shaft and a feathered fletching at the tail. The linework is soft and sketchy, with light hatched shading on the loops and ribbon tails to suggest volume. A red pencil lies across the top left of the open sketchbook, and the composition is centred on the bow.

Arrow Bow Ribbon Feather Sketch

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mr Gosling would not let her touch the feathers until the bow was right. 'A ribbon is a promise made in public,' he said, tapping the open sketchbook with a bent finger, 'so it had better look like one.' Nell had drawn nothing in her life but ledgers and the odd apple tree, and her mother's red pencil kept skidding wherever she wanted it to hold.

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She started with the shaft, a straight run from nock to point, then the fletching in short strokes leaning all one way, like barley after rain. The bow was the hard part. Every loop came out looking merely folded, so she shaded the undersides until the cloth seemed to lift off the paper, the way Ada Pryor's silk lifted off the shop counter when she shook it out for the Harvest committee. 'Lighter,' said Mr Gosling. 'You're pressing like you mean it.'

The archery prize at the Michaelmas fair was a length of crimson ribbon, and every girl in Ashby wanted it knotted to her own arrow. Mr Gosling had told the committee he would fletch the winning shaft himself and copy whatever design lay on the page. Nell had known this since Tuesday. She had also known, since the first loop, whose hands would be steadiest at the butts.

On the morning of the fair she sat at the kitchen table and drew one small N into the tail of the ribbon, so faint that only someone looking closely would find it. Mr Gosling found it at once. He said nothing. He tied the bow onto the arrow with the N facing outward, and by noon half the village had seen it.