Coloured pencil drawing of a stylised phoenix with long swirling tail feathers, shaded in soft blues, greens, yellows and violet on a white background.

Flowing phoenix bird design

Colour · Flash

A stylised bird, likely a phoenix, stands upright with its wings raised and its head turned to one side, with a crest of curled plumes above. Fine dark outlines and ornamental curls define the wings, chest and long trailing tail feathers. The drawing is coloured in soft pastel blues, greens and violets with yellow and orange accents, set on a plain white background.

Phoenix Bird Feather Swirl Tail feather Crest

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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

Sit down before the kettle boils over, love, because the night's long and I've a bird to tell you about. Not a robin, and not a gull off the car park roof. This one has a crest like a burnt match and tail feathers that trail down three flights of stairs. It only comes out when the corridor lights drop to that hum nobody can name.

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There was a porter called Teodor who worked the lift on the east wing, and he swore that every third night at ten past three a pale bird perched on the lift's ceiling hatch, wings folded like a closed umbrella, watching the ward through the grille. Nobody believed him until Sister Abiodun lost her keys and found them in the bird's nest, which was made of old drip tubing and the paper hats the surgeons throw away.

The bird didn't come for the living or the dead. It came for the ones who'd gone quiet at the desk, the staff who'd stopped feeling their own feet. It opened its wings on the landing, and every blue and violet feather lit a little, the way a coal does when you blow on it. Teodor said the corridor smelled of hot pastry and rain for a full minute after, and that his tea went cold in his hand because he forgot to drink it.

So when your pager goes off at four and you think the night's finished with you, look up. Teodor's lift still sticks between floors. Somebody has to ride it to the roof, and somebody has to tell the bird it's allowed to burn. Mind the stairs. Off you go, then.