Fine line black and grey dragonfly tattoo with teal accents and swirling scrollwork across the top of a foot, with glitter nail varnish on the toes.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dragonfly and swirls on the top of a foot

Fine line · Other · Mixed · Photo

A dragonfly with shaded grey wings and a teal-accented body sits among thin black scrollwork and small dots across the top of a bare foot. The linework is fine and the wings are softly shaded, with teal used sparingly on the body and a few flourishes. The tattoo is centred on the foot against a grey textured floor, with the toes visible at the bottom of the frame.

Fine line Other Dragonfly Swirl Wing Scrollwork Dot

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 dragonfly came up to the fourteenth floor on a Tuesday, which is the wrong day for anything to arrive. I was pegging a tea towel that said Skegness to the balcony rail my dad bolted on in 1974, and it hovered at my elbow as if someone had sent it to check on me. Its wings were grey glass with the light running through them, and a thread of teal ran down its body, the exact colour of the paddling pool Kiran's kids had abandoned in the car park.

Keep reading

Nobody on the sixth floor trusts the lifts, so I took the stairs down to fetch Mr Okonedo's post. The dragonfly followed me as far as the second landing, weaving through the wrought iron banisters as though it knew their pattern. Every curl of that railing had been painted over so many times it looked like icing. The dragonfly settled on the third curl, opened its wings and sat still while I counted the rust-coloured dots along the step. Then it lifted off and slipped out through the broken pane beside the bin chute.

I told Mr Okonedo. He said dragonflies only go where there is water, and the nearest water is the canal behind the retail park, a mile off and a flight of concrete away. We both knew what that meant and neither of us said it.

The next morning a single grey wing was caught in the spokes of my pegs, perfect and dry. I left it there and hung the washing around it. The council are re-rendering the block in spring, so I have decided to be the last thing on the fourteenth floor that remembers the way down.