Hand-drawn flash design of arrows radiating from the words follow your arrow, with feathers and a lotus flower, in fine line and blue, teal and pink colouring.

Radiating arrows and feathers flash design

Fine line · Colour · Flash

A notebook sketch of decorative arrows fanning out from central script lettering that reads follow your arrow. Surrounding the words are feathers, a lotus flower, a ribbon bow and small diamond and dot accents, drawn in fine black linework. The arrows and feathers are shaded with blue, teal, purple and pink coloured pencil on a cream dotted page.

Fine line Botanical Arrow Feather Lotus Flower Lettering Script Diamond Dot Ribbon Bow

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hettie had spent three weeks trimming goose quills before Mr Ashdown let her near the dye pots. The shop smelt of hot glue and wet linen, and its window looked over the market cross, where pigeons fought over spilt barley. 'Left wing for the bow side,' he said, not looking up from the shaft he was binding. 'Right for the other. Mix them and the arrow spins like a drunk man going home.'

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She asked why the feathers had to lean at all. He pushed a finished shaft across the bench and tapped it. 'Nothing flies straight. It goes where it is pushed, and the feather does the pushing. Lean it wrong and you'll hit the wall beside the target.' That afternoon he let her mix the colours: woad for the deep blue, a sharp teal from the copper pan, madder for the pink that always faded first in the sun. 'Blue holds,' he said. 'Pink wants to go home early. Give it a ribbon to hold on to.'

A lad from the high farms came in on the Thursday, cap in both hands, wanting arrows for a bow his father had carved before he died. He had a purse of coins and a plan to walk to Leeds with what was left. Mr Ashdown turned the bow over in the light and asked him which feather he would want to fly on. The lad frowned at the row on the wall, then pointed to a purple one near the end. 'That one, then,' said Mr Ashdown, and took it down.

When the lad had gone, Hettie found the order book open to a sketch she did not remember drawing: arrows fanning out from a single line of lettering, every one leaning the same way. Beneath it, in his careful hand, Mr Ashdown had written: follow your arrow, and mind the lean.