Black ink drawing of a crow in flight with painterly feathers on a plain white background, shown as a standalone blackwork-style design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Flying crow in black ink

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A single crow or raven is shown in side profile, wings spread and angled upward as if mid-flight. The feathers are rendered with loose, expressive brushstrokes in solid black with some lighter grey highlights, and the edges are ragged rather than crisp. The bird sits alone in the centre of an otherwise empty white background.

Blackwork Crow Bird Flight Wing Feather

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

Dear Mother,

Keep reading

The gulls have given up on the rock now that the storm has blown itself out, but the crows have not. Three of them came down on the gallery rail this morning and watched me scrape the salt off the lens as if they were waiting for a verdict. The eldest, the one with a ragged wing like a torn sail, took a bit of my bread and flew straight out over the water, never once flapping at the top of the lift, just tilting and falling and catching again. Mr Abernathy says they follow the fishing boats home and that a crow leaving the harbour before dawn means a boat will not come back. I told him that was nonsense, and he said I could write it in my letter if I liked, so there it is.

The lamp is trimmed and the logbook is current. I have written the wind every hour, which Mr Abernathy says is what a keeper is for, though I have a feeling the sea would not notice if I stopped. Yesterday the Marigold went past at a distance too close for comfort, and I stood at the rail until her lights were gone, counting the crow that was circling over her mast as if it were keeping tally.

When the lamp was lit last night I looked out and saw one black shape against the moon, going the opposite way from everything else, toward the rocks instead of away. I did not write it down. I am writing it to you now, and I think you will understand why I did not put it in the log.