Symmetrical black line drawing of an ornate owl built from paisley, leaf sprig and mandala motifs, shown as a tattoo design on plain white.

Ornate owl design in paisley linework

Black and grey · Flash

A symmetrical line drawing of an owl-like figure, with large eye shapes filled with small leaf sprigs and a central body decorated with stacked paisley and mandala-style forms. The linework is fine and even in black on white, with dense hatching and dotted detail in the wings and feather-like petals. The image is monochrome and centred, with the design spreading outward into flowing paisley scrolls at the sides.

Owl Paisley Mandala Leaves Feather Ornament Symmetry

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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

The owl had been sitting on the fence post since the morning the van lost its nearside wheel nut, and by the third day I had stopped trying to shoo it off. It sat so still that the dust settled along its head, and when the wind came up off the saltpan it flattened its feathers in neat rows, like my grandmother lining up blocks on a printing table. She printed cloth in a yard outside Ahmedabad, madder red and indigo, and she used to say a good owl was the only creature that could look at a pattern and find the mistake in it.

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On the fourth afternoon, with nothing to do but wait for the garage truck from Marree, I unrolled a length of undyed muslin across the bonnet and pressed the owl block into the ink pad I had carried all the way from home. The eyes came out full of little leaf sprigs, the body stacked with paisley and mandalas, the wings feathered with dots. I lifted the cloth and laughed out loud. The block was carved backwards. Every curl turned the wrong way, and the owl on the sheet was looking at me from the opposite side of its own face.

The owl on the post turned its head, slowly, and seemed to study the print. I could not carve the block again out here, and I could not afford to throw good cloth away. So I hung the sheet from the wing mirror and let the wind work on it. The truck came at dusk. The mechanic looked at the owl, then at the cloth, and bought it for his daughter's birthday for less than it was worth.

When I finally drove away, the post was empty except for a single grey feather. In the mirror I saw it lift and turn, and for one moment its shape was the wrong way round, exactly as I had printed it.