Blue tattoo of a bird in flight above a branch of flowers and leaves running down a woman's upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Blue bird and blossoms on upper arm

Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A blue tattoo of a bird in flight sits near the shoulder, with a branch of round blossoms, buds and leaves trailing down the upper arm. The linework is clean and the flowers are filled with soft blue shading and lighter highlights. The design is shown in blue ink against the skin, with a woman's hand and lilac top visible at the edge of the frame.

Upper arm Bird Flower Blossom Branch Leaves Bud

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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

You are the only light on Cordwainer Lane at half four, the oven door hung open to take the chill off the proving room, and Mrs Ivanova's flour sacks still wear their winter stains. You dust the bannetons with rice flour and listen to the first van grinding up from the docks.

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On the shelf above the sink sits the blue-and-white plate your father bought at a car boot sale in Margate, its willow trees bent over a bridge nobody has ever crossed in the right direction. The bird painted on the rim has been chipped down to a crescent, and you stopped seeing it years ago, the way you stop seeing the kettle. This morning it is the only thing you can see. Its wings are open as though it has just left the branch, and the blossoms beneath it are heavy with blue shadow.

Ferdinand, the old night porter, knocks twice on the back door with a crate of eggs and asks what is wrong with your face. You tell him nothing. You take the plate down, turn it over, and find a pencil note in your father's careful hand: Keep the bird flying. Ferdinand reads it upside down and laughs, a sound like a tray set down gently on a counter.

You slide the loaves into the oven, the crust blistering and sighing, and when the sky over the car park goes the colour of skimmed milk you carry the plate out to the step and set it on the wall, bird facing the road. Behind you the bread begins to smell of morning, and the shutter rattles up as if the day had asked for her by name.