Fine line dragonfly tattoo with purple outlined wings and black swirling tails on the lower abdomen.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dragonfly with swirls on the lower abdomen

Fine line · Other · Mixed · Photo

A single dragonfly is drawn in thin black outline, with its wings filled in pale purple and its body shaded dark with a touch of green. Fine curling lines trail from the head and tail, forming open swirls across the skin. The tattoo sits centrally on a light skin tone, with a grey garment at the top edge and white fabric at the bottom of the frame.

Fine line Other Dragonfly Swirl Wing Insect

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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

The wire man at Pargeter's Travelling Fair was the last of his trade, and by the August of 1961 he had only me to show for it. Dad had bent copper into dragonflies for every show since the war and sold them for a shilling at the gate. On wet Saturdays, when the crowds thinned to a few dozen, the dragonflies were what kept the lights on in the caravan.

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The trick was in the tail. He fed the wire off the spool and curled the end with pliers while the rest was still warm from the brazier, so each one finished in a little spiral that looked like it was still turning. The wings were tissue cut from old programme paper and dyed with blackcurrant juice, a violet that faded to grey in the rain. I wanted the swirls to go on longer every season, and Dad said I was wasting good copper.

The lorry broke down at Wisbech in September, and the owner sold the big top for scrap. We stayed in the field with the ghost train and the one working carousel, and the children stopped coming. On the last evening I walked out past the dyke where the reeds were full of real dragonflies, the blue ones that hover as if they are listening, and I held one of ours up beside them. In the low light the purple wings looked nearly alive.

I gave the dragonflies to the girl who sold ice creams, one each. The last one I kept for myself, wedged behind the cab sun visor. Dad never asked where it had gone. Some mornings I still find copper dust in my coat pockets, bright as something nobody got around to paying for.