Fine line black tattoo of a bird in flight with curling tail flourishes on the side of an ankle.

Bird in flight on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a single bird in flight drawn in thin black outline, with swirling feather and tail flourishes. The linework is clean and unshaded, with no fill or grey wash. The photo shows the lower leg and foot on a beige carpet, with the tattoo sitting on the side of the ankle.

Fine line Ankle Bird Flourish Feather

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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

It had rained since six, the fine kind that sits on the tarpaulins and waits for a gust to shake it down the back of your neck. Haddow Street market was half empty, and Mrs Okafor had shut her stall early, leaving me with a tin of shortbread and the drawer of lost property I'd promised to clear by Friday.

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Most of it was junk: a child's glove, three keys, a tennis racket with no strings. Under the racket was a sketchbook belonging to a girl called Nell Brannigan, who had drawn the same bird on every page. Never a finished bird, just a single line for the back, a swoop for the wing, and then curls trailing off the tail like smoke that had decided to fly.

I found her at the bus shelter on Crane Road, damp and furious, holding a carrier bag over a bundle of posters. I handed her the book. She didn't say thank you. She opened it on the bench, turned to the last page and traced the bird with a wet finger. The ink had run in the rain, but the outline held, dark and thin along the wing.

"It only flies if you don't colour it in," she said. "Dad always said that." Then she tucked the book inside her coat and walked off into the rain, and I stood there a while longer, looking at the empty space where a bird could go.