Small black outline butterfly tattoo with simple wings and antennae on the inside of a person's ankle.

Simple butterfly tattoo on an ankle

Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A small, simple butterfly is outlined in solid black ink on the side of an ankle. The wings are drawn as elongated, tapering shapes with a bold, even line, and two dots mark the head and antennae. The design sits centrally on the ankle against plain skin, with a dark chequered fabric visible behind.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Walt,

Keep reading

You will laugh, but the chapel roof has been full of butterflies since Tuesday, the small brown sort that come up out of the hay fields when the heat finally breaks. Mrs Pargeter swears they are the souls of the men lost at the quarry, and I told her souls do not need to eat sugar lumps off the vicar's windowsill, which is what they were doing this morning. She did not think it funny.

Mr Hollis has asked me to paint the new sign for the bakery, and he wants a butterfly on it, so I have been practising on old newspaper at the kitchen table. The trouble is the wings. Every time I try them with the sable I go round and round and the line turns thick and muddy. Yesterday I tried it in one go, no lifting the brush, the way you showed me on the lorry door, and the wing came out long and tapering like a leaf after rain. Then I put the two dots for the head and the feelers, and it looked back at me as if it had somewhere to be.

I have pinned the best one to the wall above the range. I do not know what I expected. Perhaps only that somebody should see it before the paint dries and it becomes just another sign over a shop with a cracked step. Come home for the harvest supper if you can. Bring your own brushes, mine are worn to nothing, and bring the tin of black enamel, the good one, because Mr Hollis says the ordinary stuff goes grey in the sun.

Your loving sister, Edie

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