Black and grey Japanese style dragon design with clouds, scales and claws, drawn on paper with no body placement shown.

Black and grey dragon with clouds

Japanese · Black and grey · Flash

A large dragon drawn in black and grey ink curls diagonally across the sheet, with its head near the upper left, clawed feet at the top and bottom, and a long scaled body. The scales, mane, whiskers and claws are rendered in fine linework and shading, with a dark background behind the body that makes the pale scales stand out. Stylised clouds fill the upper left and right, and the composition is a tall vertical design suited to a back or sleeve piece.

Japanese Dragon Cloud Scale Claw Whiskers Mane

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Aunt Bronwen,

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The dragon is still coiled in the big walnut tree behind the packing shed, though Dad says it is only the wind moving the branches. I have stopped arguing. Yesterday I climbed up to the fork where the bark is smooth and found a scale the size of a thumbnail lying in the crook, grey as pewter, edged with that fine white line you used to draw on my school jotters. I have it in my pocket now. It is warm, which I know is nonsense.

The clouds came down over the Wye valley on Tuesday, the sort that sit on the orchard like wet wool. Mr Pritchard from the cider mill swears the dragon drinks the rain off the pears before the pickers can, and that is why the Conference crop is thin this year. I told him the pears were thin because of the frost in April, and he gave me that look he keeps for vicars and tax men.

But I will tell you what happened on Friday, because you of all people will believe it. Half the ladders were already put away when the thunder started, and Joe went off across the top field with the sack barrow, shouting that he had seen a tail go over the hedge. We found him sitting in the grass, very pale, and he would only say the claws had been as long as his arm and had hung over the wall like washing. Nobody got hurt. The dragon, if it was one, left the good apples alone and took only the windfalls, which I think is fair.

Come in September when the harvest is in. I will leave the kitchen door on the latch and the kettle warm. Bring your old sketchbook. I think it wants filling again, and I would like to see what it makes of the tree.

Your loving niece, Megan