Black line drawing of a stylised cat sitting upright with a smiling face, whiskers and swirling flourishes around its body and tail, shown as a tattoo design without skin.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Stylised cat line drawing with swirls

Black and grey · Flash

A sitting cat with a smiling face, pointed ears and long whiskers is drawn in black linework. Its body and tail are outlined with loose, sweeping curls and thin swirling strokes that extend around the figure. The drawing is in black ink on a white background with no shading or colour.

Cat Swirl Whiskers Sitting cat Line drawing

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

Sit down, sit, before the wind takes your hat over the edge. Yes, the flat stone, that's the one the cat likes. You'll not shift her. She has been sitting on that rock since the snow came down the pass in the year the bridge fell, and she has never once looked anything but pleased with herself.

Keep reading

My grandmother knew a carter called Marta who crossed the summit every week with her mules. Marta fed the cat scraps and got nothing back but that wide, knowing smile. The old folk said the cat's tail could draw the mist round itself like a curtain, and that when a traveller was about to lie at the top of the pass, the curls of cloud would start to turn in the air above her head.

One winter a merchant from the lowlands came up with a purse of gold and a promise to cut a new road through the rock. He talked about nothing else. The cat watched him over her shoulder, and the smile grew so wide her whiskers reached the cloud. Marta saw the mist spiralling thick above the animal and understood. She walked the merchant to the edge and told him the road was already built, that the cat had laid it with her tail. He laughed, went down the far side, and nobody in the valley has seen him since.

See the stone there? The worn grooves are where her tail has swept it for three hundred years. Drink your tea. And mind, when she smiles at you, check your pockets.