Black and grey dreamcatcher tattoo with a tree of life inside the hoop and three shaded feathers, placed on the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dreamcatcher with tree of life on ribs

Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A dreamcatcher hangs from a beaded cord, with a tree of life drawn inside the hoop, its branches and roots shaded in fine grey lines. Three feathers hang below, with soft grey shading and a reddish-brown tint on the centre feather. The tattoo is photographed close up on the side of the torso against plain skin.

Ribs Dreamcatcher Tree of life Feather Bead Root

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

Tom, the hoop's finished, though Mum says it looks like a wreath that has lost its nerve. I used willow cut from behind the chapel wall and bound it with waxed thread, then strung it with brown beads from the jar Gran kept in her sewing box. Three feathers hang under it. Two are gulls from the breakwater, grey as the sea on a wet Tuesday. The middle one is from the pigeon that lived in the fish shed, and I stained its tip with rust-coloured tea so it would match the paint on your boat.

Keep reading

Inside the hoop I drew a tree with my nib pen, the one you said I'd never master. I gave it branches that spread out to the rim and roots that go down past the bottom of the ring, because Mr Ellery at the school told us a tree is only as high as it is deep. I shaded the bark with little fine lines, the way you taught me to shade a sky, and it took me four evenings and most of the ink.

The wireless said the weather is making up off the Dogger, and the Mary Constance went out on Sunday without you on the list. Nobody will tell me why. I hung the hoop in the front window this morning, where the light comes through the net curtain and throws the shadow of the branches across the floor.

If the tide brings you in on Thursday, don't go round by the back lane. Come along the quay and look up at the window first. Count the feathers. I'll be standing under the middle one, waiting for you to wave.