Colourful realistic tattoo on a person's shoulder and upper arm, showing a nebula with stars above a tree on a path with a silhouetted figure walking towards it.

Galaxy sky and tree landscape on upper arm

Realism · Shoulder · Colour · Photo

The tattoo covers the shoulder and upper arm with a swirling nebula of purple, pink and teal, scattered with bright stars. Below, a large tree stands on a grassy landscape at sunset, with a path leading down to a small dark figure walking away from the viewer. The shading is smooth and painterly with soft colour blends, and the composition stacks the night sky above the landscape against a black background.

Realism Shoulder Upper arm Galaxy Nebula Star Tree Path Figure Landscape 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,

Keep reading

The oak by the stile has started to lean toward the road, the way it did the summer you went. Dad says it wants cutting back, but I told him to leave it alone. Every evening I walk down the lane to where the path bends, and I wait until the sky goes the colour of a bruise and then the colour of nothing, and the stars come out thick as spilt salt. You always said they were closer over the fields. I still can't tell if you were right.

Mrs Pryce from the shop says she saw you on the train at Hereford, grey coat, reading something with the cover torn off. She said you didn't look up. I am not writing to scold you. I am writing because your letter in March said you had found a room above a bakery where the bells ring every hour, and I have been thinking about bells that tell you the time when all you want is to forget it.

Last Thursday the sky went wrong over the wood. A band of violet and green rolled up behind the hill, the rooks went up all at once, and for a minute I thought it was the end of everything. Then it settled and it was only the northern lights, Mr Abbott said, though he has never been north of Shrewsbury. I stood under the oak with my palm on the bark and thought, he is walking under that now, wherever he is, and it is the same sky.

I have left the gate on the latch. The path is still there, worn pale where your boots used to go. When you are ready, follow it back to the tree and I will have the kettle on. If you cannot find the way, look up. The stars are in the same places they were when you were small, and they have never once moved to spite us.

Love, Mum