Black and grey realism dreamcatcher tattoo with feathers, birds and script on the side of the ribs.

Dreamcatcher with feathers and script on ribs

Realism · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A dreamcatcher with two shaded feathers hangs from beaded cords, with a flock of small birds rising from the left. Fine shading and soft grey gradients give the feathers and rope rim depth. A line of script runs beside the dreamcatcher on a lightly shaded background, and the tattoo is shown in black and grey on the side of the torso.

Realism Ribs Dreamcatcher Feather Bird Script Quote Bead

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

Mrs Abernethy keeps the attic window open for the gulls, which is the first thing you learn at Seaview House and the last thing you forgive. You arrived in October with one suitcase and a hoop of willow and string that you hung from the latch without asking anyone's permission. By the second week the beads had gone grey with salt, and the landlady had stopped complaining, because the lodgers who slept under it reported dreams of a long wet road and a man selling cockles.

Keep reading

Each morning the birds come off the harbour wall in a ragged flock, scattering over the chimney pots as if someone had shaken out a handkerchief of ash. You count them from the bed. Eleven, then nine, then a fistful that never seems to settle. The feathers they drop on the sill are the grey of wet slate, and you start keeping them in a biscuit tin under the bed, sorting them by how far they might carry.

The letter comes on a Thursday, smelling of the post van and somebody else's cigarettes. Your brother has taken the ferry to Ostend and will not be writing again, but he has sent his lucky cord back to you, knotted with a single jet bead. You thread it through the hoop beside the others, and the wind from the open window sets the whole thing turning, slow as a clock with no hands.

By Sunday the tin is full and the gulls have gone quiet. You carry the feathers down to the shingle and let the tide take them one at a time, watching each one float out past the breakwater until it is nothing but a small dark mark, then a glint, then only the sea.