Ornate owl flash design with feathers and scrollwork, shown in full colour, blue monochrome and sepia versions.

Ornate owl flash design in three colourways

Mixed · Flash

A symmetrical owl with large round eyes, a small crown above its head and ear-like tufts, framed by feathered wings and curling scrollwork. The top version is coloured in browns, reds and yellows, the middle version uses blue and white linework, and the bottom version is rendered in gold and cream on a dark brown gradient. The layout is centred with the three versions stacked vertically on white and dark backgrounds.

Owl Feather Scroll Crown Wing Eye

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 lift in Corbel House had been broken since the spring, so Ada Feeney took the stairs with a bag of onions in each hand and her knees complaining on every landing. She knew the owl by then. It sat on the rail outside the eleventh floor with a crown of bent wire on its head, turning its round yellow eyes to each lit window in turn, as if reading names off a list.

Keep reading

Her grandmother used to say the owl had been king of a wood that stood where the car park now was. The men with the saws came, and the king flew up to the highest roof to wait for them to finish. Nobody came back to fetch him, so he stayed on, counting the lights, because somebody had to keep track of who was still home.

When a window went dark for good, the owl pulled a feather from its wing and laid it on the sill below. Ada found the first one the winter her husband went into the hospice. It was brown with a rust-red edge, and warm, as if it had been carried in someone's pocket. She kept them in a biscuit tin under the bed. There were eleven by the spring the council sent its letters, and when the men came to board up the ground floor, Ada went out with the tin under her arm. The owl was on the rail, waiting, its crown catching the last of the sun. It looked at the tin, then at her, and lifted one wing so she could count what was left.