Realistic owl face tattoo with orange eyes and grey feather shading, set among swirling tribal-style lines on the upper arm.

Owl face tattoo on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A frontal owl face fills the centre of the piece, with detailed feather texture around the beak and brow. The eyes are rendered in orange with dark pupils and bright highlights, and the rest of the feathers use soft grey and black shading. Flowing black and grey swirls and feather shapes extend to the right, framing the owl against the skin.

Realism Upper arm Owl Eye Feather Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had been falling since Martinmas, and by the third night the drifts had swallowed the lower step of the Hollin Gate inn so that nobody came in or went out but by the hayloft hatch. Mother Ashby kept the fire banked and the kettle low, and when the travellers asked why the owl on the signboard had its eyes shut, she told them to mind their business and pour their own ale.

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There was a carter that night, Tobias Reeve, who had cut his way up from the valley with a load of salt pork and no sense. He sat near the hearth picking ice from his moustache and watching the window. Each time the wind dropped, something tapped the shutter, soft and patient, three times. Mother Ashby said it was only the sign swinging. The carter said a sign does not knock.

In the grey before dawn she climbed to the loft and found the owl perched on the rafter above the hatch, its great amber eyes wide open, its feathers crusted white. It did not hoot or flutter. It simply looked down at her, the way the old landlord used to look at a customer who had not yet paid. Then it turned its head, slow as a clock hand, and stared out through the crack in the shutter toward the road.

By noon the snow had stopped. Tobias Reeve's cart was gone from the yard, and on the packed snow beside the water trough lay a single grey feather, long as a man's hand, with a silver thread of salt caught in its barbs. Mother Ashby kept it in the tin above the mantel. She never again asked the owl to shut its eyes.