Pencil drawing of a lion head with a flowing, swirling mane, shaded in soft greys as a tattoo design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lion head pencil sketch

Black and grey · Flash

A lion's head faces forward, with detailed eyes, nose and whiskers rendered in fine pencil lines. The mane flows outward in curling, feathered strokes that fade into the pale background. The drawing uses grey graphite shading only, with soft gradients around the face and darker accents in the mane.

Lion Mane Sketch Design

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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

Dear Tomas, the scaffold came down on Tuesday and the lion is whole again, though you would not know it from the gate. Mr Fenwick wanted the mane smoothed flat like a barber's shop sign. I told him the mane had been cut by a man who loved wind, and he could find another mason if he wanted something tidier.

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The head had lost most of its nose to frost and somebody's car bumper. I spent three weeks with a pencil and the old photographs from the parish office, drawing the feathered locks back in before I touched a chisel. The paper went soft from my sweat and the rain got in through the tent, but the lines held. You can still see the pencil ghost under the stone if the light is low, which I have left on purpose on the left side, where the curl bends back toward the gate.

Last night I walked up after the lamps were out. The eyes are the thing people notice first, two shallow hollows that somebody filled with lead paint a hundred years ago and the rain has since taken away. I did not repaint them. I thought about it for a long time. Instead I cut a single curl that lifts off the brow, deep enough that the shadow falls in the same place each evening, and from the lane it looks as if the lion has just turned to see who is coming.

I will not be home for the wedding. Tell Mum the yard keeps a kettle on and I have a spare bed over the sheds. Send the photograph of the bench if you find it. I want to see whether the old carver had the same stubborn look.