Black and grey blackwork and dotwork tattoo of a raven with spread wings and claws gripping a branch, running down the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Raven with spread wings on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A large raven is shown head down along the forearm, with its wings spread across the upper arm side and its claws gripping a bare branch at the top. The feathers are built from fine dotwork stippling and bold blackwork shading, with dense texture on the head and neck and lighter grey tones on the wing feathers. The design is entirely in black and grey ink and fills the forearm from the wrist up to near the elbow against a plain pale background.

Blackwork Dotwork Forearm Raven Bird Wing Feather Branch Claw

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

Dear Tom,

Keep reading

The raven is back on the hawthorn above the slip, hanging head down over the water the way it did the week the Mary Ann didn't come round the point. You'll say I'm getting fanciful, but Pell's boy has stopped throwing stones at it and the gulls have given up the bay wall to its wings. They spread out like a dropped coat caught on the branch.

Ma always said a raven that hangs over the water is counting the drowned, and it won't stop until the number is right. I went down at dusk with the lamp and tried to count it myself. Its claws hold that bare branch as if they've been there since the flood. I got as far as forty feathers on the near wing before the light went flat and the tide came sucking up the slip.

Here is the thing I have not told Mrs Pell. Last night I dreamt the bird turned its one pale eye on me and said my name, and the number was one short. I woke with the window open and salt on the sill. The Mary Ann's crew list is still pinned in the chandler's, with your name on it, and I have been meaning to take it down since March.

If you come home for Michaelmas, bring the list with you. We can count it together, from the top, and see whether the raven has finally got its tally.

Your sister, Nell