Black and grey neo-traditional owl tattoo surrounded by roses and a lotus on an upper arm and shoulder.

Owl and roses on upper arm and shoulder

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tattoo covers the upper arm and shoulder, centred on a fierce owl with detailed feathers and a bold stare. Roses, peony-style blooms and a beaded chain frame the owl, with bold outlines and smooth grey shading. Dotted stippling appears in the lower lotus-like flower, and the composition wraps around the arm.

Neo-trad Botanical Dotwork Upper arm Shoulder Owl Rose Peony Lotus Flower Bead Chain Feather

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 snow had lain eleven weeks on the Fenlow road when Hester Crane found the owl in the seed store, sitting on a coil of rope with its face turned to her like a lamp. Mice had got into the barley. The seed would not last to sowing, and she had nothing to give the bird but the heel of the loaf, so she gave it that, and the owl took it without a sound.

Keep reading

After that she left a saucer of milk on the threshold each night, and each morning it was empty and the barley was lighter by fewer mice. Her neighbour Ruth Ambrose said owls brought bad luck into a house. Hester said she had enough bad luck already and went on setting out the saucer. In February she hung her mother's jet beads on the nail above the door, because her mother had always said the owl liked anything that caught the light.

One night the owl did not come. Hester took the lantern out past the pump and found it in the drift, one wing bent and its feathers rimed white. She carried it in wrapped in her apron and set it by the stove, and it watched her all night with eyes like wet coins. By morning it was gone. On the step lay a single peony, frozen stiff, its petals the colour of the milk she had poured, and the beads were back on the nail.

The thaw came in March. The barley grew green and clean, and no mice came near it. Hester never learned what the owl had promised her, or whether it had promised anything. But every winter after, she set the saucer out, and every winter the owl sat on the rope and waited for it.