Fine line black tattoo of a bow and arrow with a leafy vine forming the bow, dotwork shading on the leaves, placed on the side of the torso.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bow and arrow with leaf vine on the side

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A bow and arrow is drawn in thin black linework, with the bow formed from a curving vine of leaves and the string running straight to the arrow. The leaves are partly filled with dotwork stippling, while the arrow shaft, fletching and a small hanging feather are outlined in fine lines. The design is shown in black ink on smooth skin, centred in the frame against a plain background.

Fine line Dotwork Botanical Ribs Bow Arrow Feather Leaves Vine

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

The arrow had gone wide twice already, and both times it dropped into the reed beds where a heron stood on one leg, unbothered by the crowd on the bank. Edwin the fletcher swore the shaft was true. His daughter Ysolde said the bow was at fault. It was a length of ash that had grown wild along the lane until old Mother Tanner wrapped it in ivy and promised it would sing.

Keep reading

Ysolde waded out and lifted the bow from the mud. The ivy had rooted into the wood over the wet winter, and where the leaves crowded thickest the bark had split into a seam of tiny dark dots, like seed or rain. She ran a thumb along them and felt the grain pull against her skin. "It doesn't want to be pulled," she said. "It wants to be asked."

Nobody laughed. Her father had lost his wife to the marsh fever that autumn, and the bow had been meant for the midsummer shoot, the first thing he had made since. Ysolde strung it with gut from the old hunting dog, set the nock, and drew slowly, the way Mother Tanner had shown her. The feather at the end of the shaft stirred though there was no wind.

The arrow left with a sound like a breath let out. It cleared the reeds and struck the water beside the heron's shadow. The bird rose unhurt and flew north over the dyke. Ysolde knotted a fresh feather to the shaft and carried the bow home over her shoulder, already listening for the next time it would sing.