Blue butterfly tattoo with a central eye and dotted wing edges, in traditional style, on the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Blue butterfly with eye on upper back

Traditional · Back · Colour · Photo

A butterfly with a large open eye at its centre is tattooed on the upper back, with the head and hair of the wearer cropped at the top of the frame. The wings use bold outlines, flat blue fills in several shades and dotted detailing along the edges, while the eye has a black pupil and light blue highlights. Blue ink dominates the design against plain, evenly lit skin, and the tattoo sits centred in the composition.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

Keep reading

The blue butterfly came back to the tiller again this morning, just as we were dropping through Garrow lock with the water still sliding off the gates. It sat on the brass rail the whole way down, opening and shutting, and I swear the eye in the middle of it was looking at the lock beam rather than at me. Dad would have said it was checking the depth.

You'll remember the cocoa tin he kept in the wheelhouse locker, the one with the dented lid that never sat straight. I opened it last night looking for the tide tables and found the brooch you made him at school, the one with the blue glass button sewn onto a square of felt. Someone had painted a dot in the middle of the button, very neatly, and he'd written on the back in pencil: keeps watch when I can't.

I don't know whether it was a joke or a promise. Probably both, with him.

So I've tied the brooch to the tiller with a length of green twine, so it swings where the butterfly likes to land. We're at Cookham on Saturday if you want to bring the kids down. Bring the tin too, and the proper lid, because I'm tired of levering the old one off with a spanner. Love, Nell

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