Black and grey realism tattoo of a Roman numeral pocket watch with a bird in flight above it, on the lower leg above a black sock.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch and bird on a lower leg

Realism · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic pocket watch with Roman numerals sits at the centre of the design, with a bird in flight above it and sketchy reed-like lines behind. The shading is soft and detailed, with strong highlights on the watch case and fine hatching in the background. The image is black and grey against a dark backdrop, with a black sock at the bottom of the frame.

Realism Calf Pocket watch Clock Roman numeral Bird Grass

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 watch came up out of the pond mud on the first warm Sunday in April, when the drainage was finally clear and I was up to my elbows in silt. Its chain had rusted to the colour of stewed tea. The Roman numerals had worn away on one side, and the hands had stopped at twenty past four, which my grandmother would have called a sign of something.

Keep reading

I wiped it on my apron and carried it up the lawn to the summerhouse, where my father kept his tins of bulbs and his bad temper. He turned it over twice before he said anything. 'Your mother's,' he said. 'She dropped it in the reeds the summer she left.' I had not known she left in summer. I had always believed it was winter, and that the rain had been the reason.

The heron that nested in the far reeds lifted off while we talked, slow and grey, and cut across the lawn above our heads. Father watched it go. Then he set the watch on the potting bench, winder side up, and told me the thing I think he had been holding for thirty years: he had never once wound it, because it had never been his to keep time by.

I wound it that evening. The second hand jerked, caught, and ran. I left it ticking beside the bulbs, and by morning the reeds at the pond's edge had gone silver with dew, and the watch had kept going through the whole night without anyone asking it to.