Realistic colour tattoo of a tawny owl with yellow eyes perched on a mossy branch with red flowers, on the outer thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Owl on a branch with red flowers on a thigh

Realism · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

A realistic owl with yellow eyes perches on a mossy, weathered branch, with two clusters of red blossoms and a red bud on the left and lower right. The feathers are shaded in soft greys and browns with fine detailing, and the branch uses green moss and brown bark tones. The design fills the outer thigh, with the owl placed at the centre and the flowers framing it.

Realism Thigh Owl Bird Branch Flower Red flower Blossom

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 first trays were proving when Nell noticed the owl, though she only saw it because the flour dust had stopped drifting in the back doorway. It sat on the iron rail above the bins, no bigger than a teacup, its yellow eyes fixed on her as though she were the late delivery.

Keep reading

"You're not on the rota," she told it. It turned its head a full half circle to look at the ovens instead, unbothered. Her father had run the bakery on Harbour Street for thirty-one years and would have flapped a tea towel at any bird that came near the dough. He would also have said the red quince on the yard wall was a fool to flower in March, and it was, scarlet blossom pushing out between the bricks while frost still lay in the gutters. Nell slid nine rye loaves onto the racks, each scored with his three slashes, and kept one eye on the rail.

At half four the owl dropped to the lid of the nearest bin, then to the mossy limb of the old pear that leaned over the wall, where it settled as if it had paid for the view. Nell broke the heel from a rye and set it on the step. She expected nothing. When she came back with the first crates, the crust was gone and a single red petal lay on the stone, bright as a coin.

She left the back door open a hand's width after that. The owl kept its own hours, the bread kept its own, and each morning the petal was waiting on the step, until Nell was no longer sure which of them had been minding the other.