Black line drawing of a lion's face in a minimalist fine line style, with a flowing mane outline, a small nose and a simple muzzle, shown on a white background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Minimal line drawing of a lion face

Fine line · Black and grey · Flash

A lion's face is drawn in a few sweeping black lines on a plain white background. The linework is thin and tapering, with bold solid shapes for the nose and the muzzle. The composition is centred and front-facing, with the mane suggested by open curved strokes around the head.

Fine line Lion Mane Line art

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the lion's gone off the bow again. Not the carving, which Dad cut from a single elm the winter before he died, but the paint. Half its mane has flaked into the cut at Hillmorton, and the face looks sideways at everything, like a man reading a bill he doesn't want to pay.

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I spent Tuesday on a plank over the water with a tin of black and Dad's old brush, the one with the bent ferrule. The nose first, because it's the bit people look at when they come through the lock. Then the muzzle, two bold strokes that Dad always made in one go without lifting. I got it wrong three times before the third one stayed.

The mane was harder. He never painted it solid. He drew it in those open curves you see on the boards, thin lines that tail off into nothing so the wind can get through, and I kept wanting to fill them in. Mrs Ashdown from the boat behind walked past with her dog and said the lion looked like it was about to sneeze. I told her that was the nearest thing to alive a barge gets.

So I'm not selling her yet. Mr Okonedo's offer is still on the table, and I've written back saying not before the spring. Come up at Easter if you can. Bring your own brush. The lion will want looking at, and so, I think, will you.