Black silhouette drawing of a flock of birds taking flight across a white background, a design suited to a tattoo.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Flock of birds in flight silhouette

Black and grey · Flash

A large flock of black bird silhouettes rises and drifts diagonally from the lower left towards the upper right of the frame. The birds are solid black shapes with no interior linework or shading, set against a plain white background. The composition is dense at the lower left and thins out towards the top right, giving a sense of movement.

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

You are on the ladder when the starlings lift, a cloud pulled off the Bramley tree all at once, and for a moment you forget the bucket hooked on your wrist. Mrs Adeyemi shouts from the gate that the cider men are late again, and you shout back that you can see the lane from up here, which is not quite true.

Keep reading

The birds go up thick over the bottom of the field, where the grass is still yellow from the dry fortnight, and they thin as they climb, scattering over the hedge into the blue like someone shaking out a sheet of ash. Your brother used to say each one was a plum that had decided to leave the tree. You never told him he was wrong. Once you tried to count them, all the way to two hundred, and lost your place when a wasp went into your collar.

By the end of August the windfalls have gone soft and sweet and the wasps have claimed every one. The orchard smells of vinegar and crushed grass. Mrs Adeyemi pays you in a brown envelope and a jar of her quince jelly, and you carry the jar home down the lane, watching the last few birds tip sideways over the ridge.

Later, at the kitchen table, you try to draw them on the back of a seed catalogue, but every bird comes out heavy, pinned to the paper like a pressed leaf. The ones that matter are the ones at the edge, the ones you almost had, already gone.

More like this

Flash design of a flock of dark silhouetted birds flying in a curving line across a white background.
Flock of birds flying in a curve
Black silhouette flash design of a flock of birds in flight, rising diagonally from lower left to upper right on a white background.
Flock of birds in flight
Black ink flash design of a bare tree with a small figure on a swing, birds flying up and away, and curved script reading she said close your eyes, and free your mind, you're free to fly.
Tree, swing and birds with script lyric
Black and grey tattoo design of a shaded feather that breaks apart into a flock of bird silhouettes rising upward, shown on a white background.
Feather dissolving into flying birds
Three solid black silhouettes of hummingbirds in flight on a plain white background, shown as a flash design with no body placement visible.
Three hummingbirds in flight
Black silhouette tattoo design of a dandelion seed head on a long stem, with seeds drifting into a trail of butterflies on a white background.
Dandelion seeds turning into butterflies
Black and grey tattoo design of a dandelion seed head dissolving into a flock of birds, shown as a standalone drawing with no body placement.
Dandelion seed head turning into birds
Black and grey tattoo design of a shaded feather with a flock of birds lifting away from its upper tip, on a white background.
Feather dissolving into flying birds
Black silhouette tattoo flash design of a dandelion seed head releasing seeds that turn into a flock of birds, shown on a plain white background.
Dandelion seeds becoming birds in flight
Black and grey tattoo design of a large feather with silhouetted birds in flight rising from its tip against a white background.
Birds rising from a feather
Three solid black silhouette swallows in flight on a white background, shown as a tattoo design sheet.
Three swallows in flight silhouette
Black line drawing of an infinity symbol with three flying birds on the upper left and the word faith in cursive script, shown as a tattoo design with no body placement.
Infinity symbol with birds and faith script

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.