Black and grey dotwork and realism tattoo of an owl, jellyfish and spiral forms with dotted geometric lines across a person's back and upper arm.

Owl and sea creatures across back and arm

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tattoo covers the upper back and shoulder, showing a shaded owl with spread wings, a spiral, and jellyfish or sea anemone forms. The owl and the jellyfish are drawn with fine stippled shading and linework, while dotted geometric lines radiate across the lower back. The background is plain pale skin and a grey wall, and the composition runs diagonally from the left shoulder blade down the right side of the back and onto the upper arm.

Dotwork Geometric Realism Back Shoulder Upper arm Owl Bird Wing Feather Jellyfish Spiral Sea creature Geometric line Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Maren kept the galley fire banked on the herring boat Tern's Rest, and the owl came aboard in the fog off the Skerry of Hallan, landing on the rail as if it had paid for the passage. It was small and grey and would not be shooed. The men called it a drowned sailor's wife come back for her husband's wages. Maren called it hungry and gave it the heads of the salt fish, which it took one at a time with great politeness.

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By the second week it had a place. It sat on the coil of rope by the hatch, round and spiral as the rope itself, and it watched the water. When the nets came up thick with jellyfish, pale things trailing long threads, the men wanted them overboard before the catch rotted. The owl stood up on the rope, spread its wings wide over the bucket, and the jellies slid away from the rim as though they had been told where to go. Nobody argued after that.

In the bad weather of the dark month the compass spun, and the skipper, Tomas Brae, lost his bearings. The fog was thick enough to lean on. Maren saw the owl lift off the rail and fly ahead into the grey, and where it went a faint line of green light showed on the water, dotted like stitches across a sail. They followed it through three hours of rain until the harbour lamps came up out of the murk.

At dawn the owl was back on the rail, feathers beaded with wet. Maren set down a bowl of stock with the fat skimmed off. The skipper asked her what it wanted for its trouble. She poured him a mug of tea and said it had never asked for anything, only that the bowl was kept warm.