Black ink line drawing of a cat face in a bold calligraphic style, showing long whiskers, two almond-shaped eyes and pointed ears on a white background.

Stylised cat face line drawing

Black and grey · Flash

A stylised cat face drawn in black ink on a white background, with two almond-shaped eyes, a pointed ear outline and a sharp triangular nose. Long, tapering brush strokes form the whiskers and the top of the head, with solid black fills used for the eyes and nose. The composition is open and minimal, with the face spread across the page and no shading or colour.

Cat Cat face Whiskers Eye Ear Nose

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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 cat has been on the hall windowsill since before the lodgers came down for breakfast, and you have given up trying to shift it. Mrs Pellow used to say it belonged to nobody, which was her way of admitting she would never be rid of it. It watches the front step with its ears laid back and its whiskers fanned out, the way the gulls watch a bin lid on the front.

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You learn its habits the way you learn the tide tables. Sun on the left-hand bay first, then the chair by the range, then the crooked stair where the carpet has worn through to the boards. On the Thursday the ferry is cancelled and four strangers stumble in dripping from the rain, it is the cat who hears the taxi on the coast road before anyone else does. It jumps down with a grumble that sounds almost like a question.

Nobody has told you what to do with the room at the top of the house. The letters from Mrs Pellow's solicitor are still unopened on the bureau, and the key hangs on a loop of red wool in the drawer with the string and the candle stubs. You have been meaning to read them. Instead you sit on the bottom step at midnight, and the cat comes and presses its warm side against your shin, as if it has settled the matter for you.

By morning the rain has cleared and the bay is the colour of pewter. The cat is back on the sill, face turned to the glass, eyes narrowed against the glare. You fetch the saucer, pour the milk, and leave the front door on the latch the way she always did, so that whoever is coming up the road will find a light on.