Red pencil sketch of a cartoon owl with spread wings clutching a faceted gem and a small flower, drawn as a tattoo design with no body placement shown.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cartoon owl sketch with a gem

Neo-trad · Colour · Flash

A red pencil line drawing of a cartoon owl with large round eyes and wings spread wide, one foot gripping a faceted gem topped with a small flower. The linework is loose and sketchy with feather detail and scalloped wing marks, and the image is drawn in red ink on a pale grey-green paper background. The owl sits centrally in the frame with its wings reaching toward the edges.

Neo-trad Owl Wing Feather Gem Flower Sketch

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The owl had been roosting in the rafters of the Carlton Ballroom since the roof leaked in March, and nobody minded much until it started nicking things. Mrs Pryce blamed the cloakroom girl, which was me, so on the Saturday the paste brooch went missing from the tray I went up the ladder with a bag of barley sugar and a face like thunder. The owl sat on a beam above the bandstand, round eyes fixed on me as if I were the one who'd done something wrong.

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I tried coaxing it down with a sweet. It answered with a long, offended hoot and flew off over the heads of the foxtrotters, wings spread so wide that a couple of the older men ducked and laughed. The band kept going. The trumpet player winked at me from under his cap and said the bird had better taste than the committee. Round the third lap, it came back down low and dropped something in the chalk dust at my feet.

It was the brooch, a faceted red stone with a little enamel flower on top, and the flower had been bent so the petals faced the ceiling. I picked it up and the owl settled on the coat hook beside my cardigan, shuffling its feathers like a clerk settling a bill. I'd worn that flower in my hair the first night I came to the hall, and I hadn't thought anyone had noticed.

I pinned the brooch on my cardigan, gave the owl the last barley sugar, and went back to the tickets. When the band struck up the last waltz, the bird closed its eyes and let the music carry on without it.