Pink phoenix with spread wings in front of an orange and purple sun motif, tattooed on the upper back in a soft fine line style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pink phoenix on upper back

Fine line · Back · Colour · Photo

A pink phoenix with spread wings and a long tail sits at the centre of the composition, with fine feather detail drawn in delicate lines. Behind it, a circular sun or fire motif in orange, yellow and purple arcs, with soft shading that fades outward. The photograph is taken straight on, showing the upper back and the top of the neck, with a soft pale skin tone and a plain background.

Fine line Back Phoenix Bird Wing Sun Fire 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 hall on Coldharbour Rise had burned twice, and both times the band came back the Saturday after. Old Tomas Vell said it was because the fire liked music. Nobody argued with him, because he had played the bass through both blazes and his fingers had never been right since.

Keep reading

The third fire came in the dry March the mill shut. Ruth Anning, who swept the floor for threepence a night, saw the sparks climb through the boards before anyone else did. She ran in among the smoke and dragged out the tin box where the dance tickets were kept. Then she went back for the piano stool, which was foolish, and the roof beam came down across her shoulder and she had to be carried out by the bakers' boys.

In the morning they found the ashes still warm in a ring, and in the middle of the ring a bird no bigger than a thrush, the colour of a coal just before it dies, lying with its wings folded like a closed fan. Ruth's sister Nan said it had come out of the smoke to look at them. It opened its wings and the ash slid off them. It rose over the blackened rafters and flew round the ruin three times, calling a note that Tomas swore was the opening bar of a waltz.

They built the hall again that summer. Tomas played the first dance, and when the couples turned, the evening light through the new windows caught the rafters in a faint rose-gold. The old men said that was the bird keeping time. Ruth never came back to sweep. The floor was swept by whoever danced last, and it was said that in all the years after, it was always clean by morning.