Realistic tattoo of a Ball Mason jar with glowing fireflies on the inner forearm, shaded in browns and greys with warm highlights.

Mason jar and fireflies on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A glass Ball Mason jar with a metal lid sits on the forearm, with the word Ball in script and MASON on the glass. Two fireflies are drawn near the base and several glowing specks float inside the jar. The jar and insects are shaded with smooth, highly detailed tonal work, and warm yellow and orange highlights on the lid and glow sit against dark brown and grey smoky shading behind the design.

Realism Forearm Script lettering

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

The jar had been on the windowsill since the spring the power went out for three days, and nobody had thought to throw it away. Tom Harrell found it when he was clearing the kitchen for the estate man, its lid rusted to a dull brown ring, the glass still cloudy with the dust of a dozen summers. Inside, something moved. He held it up to the light from the back door and saw a faint green pulse, then another, like a slow heartbeat in the dark of the jar.

Keep reading

He took it down to the field behind the lane, where his father used to walk the dog at dusk. The grass was high and wet and smelled of cut hay. He unscrewed the lid, which came off with a sigh, and set the jar on the stone wall. For a moment nothing happened. Then the specks rose one by one and drifted out into the blue air, slow as sparks from a bonfire, and a pair of them settled on the rim of the glass as if they had forgotten how to leave.

He stayed until the last of the light went out of the hedgerows and the field was full of small cold lamps. Only one stayed in the jar when he capped it again, turning its tail on and off against the glass. He carried it home in his coat pocket, and in the morning he set it on the sill beside the kettle, where it went on glowing faintly, as if waiting to be asked for.