Coloured ink drawing of a leaping trout curved into a circle, with black linework, green, peach and teal washes, and splashes of water around it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Leaping trout within a circle of splashes

Colour · Flash

A trout curves round in a circle, its head at the top and its tail sweeping back down past the body, with wave-like splashes and droplets forming the outer ring. The fins and scales are drawn with fine black linework and scattered dots, with soft green, peach, teal and brown washes. The drawing sits centred on a plain white sheet beside a black pen and a paintbrush.

Fish Water Splash Droplet

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 have run the trout stall for three summers now, and you still flinch when the tin fish leaps. The tank is an old painted barrel, the rods are cut from hazel, and the hooks are bent wire that the lads from the dodgems straighten every night. Nobody wins much. That is the point. Mr Ansell, who owns the Gallant Stars roundabout and most of the grudges between the caravans, says a stall that pays out is a stall the council shuts down by Friday.

Keep reading

On the last night at Hollin Common, a girl with a torn ribbon in her plait stops at the rail and asks why the fish are all so bright. You tell her they were painted by a man who once watched a real trout jump a weir in spate, the water breaking white off its back like a shawl thrown from a bridge. You tell her that is why the splashes on the tin rings curl the way they do, and she nods as if you have explained the weather.

After the lights go down you find the real fish. It has been in the spare water butt all week, grey and tired, and you meant to tip it into the brook on the way out of town. When you lift the lid it throws itself up in one bright curve, clears the gravel and the pegs of the hoopla stall, and lands in the wet grass before it finds the ditch.

In the morning the barrel is empty and the canvas is rolled up. You keep the painted fish with the chipped fin from the top shelf of the wagon. In March, when the brook runs high, you walk down to the bend with a rod you never use and wait, not for a catch, but for the water to break white.