Large coloured realism owl tattoo with spread wings across a man's chest, framed by geometric ornaments above and below.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Owl with spread wings on chest

Realism · Chest · Colour · Photo

A large owl with spread wings fills the chest, its face centred and looking directly forward. The feathers use soft shading and painterly splashes of yellow, green, blue and brown, with darker greys and black linework defining the wing edges. Geometric mandala-style ornaments sit above the owl's head and below its body, balancing the composition.

Realism Geometric Chest Owl Wing Feather Mandala Geometric pattern Splash

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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

Sit closer, the fire won't carry your ears to the back of the room. No, not that stool, the one with three legs, it knows its business. Now. You want the owl of Carrick Holm, and you'll not get it without the tide story first, so hush and let me work up to it.

Keep reading

Tam Riddoch mended nets on the north quay, and he had a wooden boat called the Ardent Wren that leaked at the seams and sang when the wind got into her. One October the sea fog came down so thick a man couldn't see his own oar. Tam was three miles out past the Sheep's Teeth when the fog closed over him like a wet sheet, and he thought, that's me done.

Then something settled on the bow. He couldn't see it, only feel the boat dip and hear the soft clatter of feathers being shaken out, wide, wider, the way a woman shakes a tablecloth. A great pale face turned towards him through the grey, and two eyes as round as the mandala stones on the cairn above the harbour. It didn't blink. It just stared straight ahead and pointed the way with its whole body, and Tam rowed where the wings were pointing, and the rocks went past on either side like teeth in a mouth.

When the keel grated on the shingle, the bow was empty. Next morning the cairn had a new carving, a bird with its wings flung open, cut into the stone beside the old zigzag sun. Mind, the feathers you'll find on the step of the chapel each October aren't for keeping. Put them back where you found them, and go home before the fog comes in.