Black fine line tattoo of a bird with spread wings above two cupped hands, inside a circle with geometric diamonds, on a person's upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bird and cupped hands on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A bird with outstretched wings sits at the centre of the design, framed by a thin circle and two outlined hands cupping upwards beneath it. The linework is fine and even, with dotwork stippling used to shade the wing feathers and body. The design is entirely black ink on pale skin, and a vertical line with diamond shapes hangs below the hands.

Fine line Geometric Dotwork Back Bird Hand Wing Circle Diamond Geometric line

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

Sit closer, the lamp's going and I'll not have you missing the bit with the bird. Every travelling show in the north had a dove act once, but the Halloran Brothers' Wonder had the finest, a white dove called Mercy who could be lifted from a folded handkerchief with nothing but a pair of hands. Nobody remembers the trick now. They remember the hands.

Keep reading

The hands belonged to Ada Pell, the last of the trick riders, who had lost her horse to the bailiffs in Carlisle and took up the dove instead. Each night at the close she stood beneath the one working bulb, cupped her palms the way you'd carry water up from a well, and opened them. Mercy would sit there a moment, considering, then go up through the canvas into the dark like a thrown coin. Nobody in the stands ever saw her come back. She always did.

The autumn the takings fell to nothing, Ada said the bird had grown too fond of the rafters and had stopped answering her. The Brothers drank the last of the wages. The ringmaster sold the spangled cloth to a man from Hull, and the little diamond lamps went into straw. On the final night there were three people in the seats and a wind through the flaps, and Ada held out her hands one more time.

Mercy came down out of the dark and settled into them as though she had never gone. The three of them sat very still and did not clap, for fear of frightening her off. Mind the step on your way out, love. Some things only come back once you've stopped calling them.