Small black and grey swallow tattoo in flight on a forearm, with a plaid shirt sleeve and a dark wristwatch visible nearby.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swallow in flight on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small swallow with outstretched wings is tattooed on the forearm, shown in flight with its tail forked and angled downward. The bird is rendered in black ink with soft grey shading across the wings and body, and the lines are fairly fine. The photograph is shot at a shallow depth of field, with the tattoo in sharp focus against a blurred indoor background and a plaid shirt sleeve at the top right.

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 closer, the fire's nearly out and I'm not getting up for wood at my age. You want the one about the swallow at the wood's edge? Right. Above Cold Harrow there's a wood called Ashen Wold, and on the last field before the trees a farmer named Tobiah Wren kept nine ewes and one bad-tempered dog. Every spring the swallows came back over the hedge low and fast, cutting the air like they were stitching it shut behind them.

Keep reading

One April a swallow came down into the yard with a red thread caught round its foot. Tobiah's daughter Nell, who was seven and never once stopped talking, followed it into the trees, because that is what children do with birds and weather and anything that goes away. She did not come back until dark. When the men went in after her, the swallow was already sitting on the gatepost, waiting, the thread gone slack.

They found her two miles deep, sitting beside a spring with her boots full of water, saying the bird had shown her the way out and then flown back in to fetch something. Nobody believed her. Then the next morning the swallow was on the gatepost again, and tied to its foot was a brass key that had been lost in the Wold for thirty years, and under the key a scrap of paper in a handwriting nobody in Harrow had seen since the old well was dug.

That's the whole of it. Mind you don't stand on the cat.

More like this

Black and grey fine line swallow tattoo in flight on a person's forearm, with a wristwatch and a plaid shirt sleeve visible.
Swallow tattoo on a forearm
Small black hummingbird silhouette tattoo in fine line style on the back of a person's neck, with hair pinned up and a blurred background.
Hummingbird tattoo on the neck
Five small black swallow silhouettes in a rising line on the inner forearm, with a hand resting against the chin in the background.
Five swallows in flight on a forearm
Small solid black dinosaur silhouette tattoo on the inner wrist of a hand raised palm-out, with blue denim jeans at the left edge of the frame.
Small dinosaur silhouette on a wrist
Black and grey swallow tattoo on the inner forearm of a person in a light grey sweater, with a ring on their hand.
Swallow tattoo on a forearm
Black fine line tattoo of two feathers on the inner forearm, close to the wrist.
Two feathers on a forearm
Small black fine line tattoo of a rearing horse beside the words take me away in script, on the inner wrist.
Horse silhouette and script on a wrist
Fine line tattoo of birds in flight rising up a forearm beside the word faith in cursive script.
Birds in flight and faith script on a forearm
Fine line tattoo of two hands hooking little fingers together, placed on the upper back near the neck.
Pinky promise hands on the upper back
Black bare tree tattoo running from the shoulder down the upper arm, with three birds in flight across the upper back.
Bare tree and birds on a shoulder
Black and grey fine line swallow tattoo on the inner wrist, with pale pink roses in the background.
Swallow tattoo on the inner wrist
Black and grey realistic swallow tattoo on the upper arm, with wings spread and head angled downward.
Swallow on an upper arm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.