Colour tattoo of a large-eyed cartoon owl perched on a branch, on the calf above a maroon sneaker and white sock.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cartoon owl on a branch on a lower leg

Calf · Colour · Photo

A cartoon owl with large, round green and yellow eyes sits on a branch, with brown and orange feathers shaded in soft gradients. The outlines are dark and loose, and the eyes and face have a painted, illustrative finish. The tattoo is centred on a pale lower leg against a black background, with a maroon sneaker and white sock visible at the bottom of the frame.

Calf Owl Branch Eye 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

Tuesday, ten past four. Flour still in the creases of my knuckles, and the proving drawer has a tick in it that I can't fix. The street is black apart from the bakery window, which I've steamed up so badly I can only make out the sycamore by its shape. Dennis from the chip shop swears an owl has been roosting in it since March. I thought he was pulling my leg.

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It's there now. A small round thing on the low branch, brown and orange, feathers that look painted on, and two enormous eyes, green at the middle and yellow at the rim, like boiled sweets someone has left too long in the sun. Every time the drawer clicks it swivels its head to look at me. I have started talking to it. Nothing sensible. I told it the rye was sulking.

Yesterday I left the heel of the seeded loaf on the sill, which is against every rule Mr Ashworth ever gave me. This morning it was gone, and a single brown feather was stuck to the wet glass, neat as a bookmark. I've put it in the ledger between Friday's takings and the flour invoice, where it looks more like an accountant's joke than anything else.

Half four. The first van is idling outside the Co-op and the sky over the moor has gone the colour of weak tea. The owl hasn't left. It watches the window with the patience of someone waiting for a bus that is always late. I cut two slices from the morning batch, buttered them, and set them out on the sill. I did it for the owl, I'll admit, but I think I was also hoping someone would be awake to see it take them.