Realistic colour half sleeve on an upper arm and shoulder, showing a swirling nebula and starry sky above a tree on a path with a silhouetted figure.

Galaxy and tree half sleeve on upper arm

Realism · Shoulder · Colour · Photo

The tattoo covers the shoulder and upper arm, with a swirling nebula of pink, blue and violet above a dark starry sky. Below, a large tree stands over a winding path, with a dark silhouette of a figure walking away from the viewer. The shading is smooth and blended, with soft gradients in the sky and detailed foliage and grass, and the colour is vivid throughout.

Realism Shoulder Upper arm Galaxy Nebula Star Tree Path Landscape Silhouette Sky Sunset

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 Tom, the cut froze solid on Tuesday and Dad finally gave up on the stove, so I'm writing this at the galley table with my coat on and the lamp turned up as high as it goes. Nell has stopped pretending she likes the bunk by the engine. We are moored under the big oak at Hale Bend, where you said you'd meet us in March, and where you did not.

Keep reading

Mum would have laughed at the sky last night. It went the colour of a bruise, then pink, then something I have no word for, all swirled as if someone had stirred the water with a paintbrush. Dad sat on the roof with his flask and named the stars for Nell, though half of his names were made up. You always said the oak was the only tree between here and Cowley worth climbing, and I watched the path beneath it fill with dusk until I could hardly tell the grass from the water.

This morning a man walked away from the bend along the towpath, shoulders square, not looking back. I thought, for one foolish moment, that he was you, grown and sure of himself at last. He got smaller and smaller until the reeds took him. I didn't call out. I think I wanted to see whether I would recognise the walk, and I did not.

So I am posting this at the lock cottage, and I am tying a copy to the lowest fork of the oak with the red wool from Nell's jumper. If you are walking that path with your head down, look up. The stars are still there, and so are we, for now. Come home before the blackthorn flowers. Love, Ellie.