Fine line black tattoo of a dandelion releasing seeds that become small flying birds, running from the shoulder blade up towards the neck.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dandelion seeds turning into birds on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A dandelion clock sits near the shoulder blade, with its seeds drifting upward and turning into small silhouetted birds that climb towards the neck. The linework is thin and delicate, with solid black silhouettes for the birds and little shading, and the design is done in black ink only. The pale skin and soft green background are out of focus, and the diagonal trail of the design leads the eye from the lower right up to the top left.

Fine line Botanical Back Dandelion Bird Seed Flight

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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

Sit closer, you lot, the lamps won't burn much longer and I've told this one at every fair from Ely to Lincoln, so mind your toffee apples. The travelling folk used to say a dandelion clock would keep a wish for you if you blew it hard enough. Old Margit Crane swore by it. She ran the coconut shy on the Tuesday field for forty summers and never once came up short on the float.

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One August the fair stopped on a hill above the river, and a girl came up the lane with a pocket full of seeds and not a coin to her name. The wishing stall cost a farthing, so she paid with a bent brass button. Margit turned it over, looked at her a long while, and said, You'll want to blow proper, love, not like a cross little sister. So the girl stood at the edge of the field and blew, and the seeds lifted off the stalk like a flock getting up its nerve.

Every seed turned to a bird before it cleared the hedge. Some were swallows, some were nothing you could put a name to, and the last few went west over the church roof, climbing and climbing towards the trees until the dusk swallowed them. Margit said the girl's wish had gone up with them, which is the only proper way a wish ever travels.

Mind the step going down, and if you find a dandelion clock in the grass tonight, leave it standing until you've thought hard about where you'd like it to go.