Black ink flash drawing of a symmetrical bird with long, flowing feather-like strokes, shown as a tattoo design on white paper.

Symmetrical bird design with flowing feathers

Black and grey · Flash

A mirrored bird-like figure with a crested head, outstretched wing forms and long tail feathers, drawn in bold black ink on white paper. The linework is smooth and tapered, with thick and thin strokes that create a calligraphic, flowing quality. The design is centred on the page in solid black with no colour or shading.

Bird Feather Wing Crest

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

The ink took three days to dry on the good paper, so I kept the sheet flat on the kitchen table and wouldn't let Mrs Okonedo's cat anywhere near it. You asked me to draw the pair of them, Tom, the two birds that came down to the harbour wall every evening in March, and I have tried, though I am not sure I have caught their necks right. The left one holds its head forward like a man reading a notice. The right one looks back over its shoulder as if someone has called its name from the boats.

Keep reading

The long feathers were the hard part. I did them with the reed pen you gave me, pressing hard on the downstroke and lifting on the way out, so each one thickens and then thins to nothing, the way the light goes off the water at six. Where the tails cross in the middle I had to decide which bird was in front, and I could not. I left them tangled. Mr Pell says that is a mistake, that a drawing must know who is above whom, but I think the birds did not know either, and that is why they stayed so long on the wall.

You will want to know whether they came back. They did not come back the next evening, nor the one after, and on the third I found their tails caught in the mesh of the crab pots at the end of the quay, two dark strokes against the grey stone. I have pinned the drawing above the stove where the steam can't reach it. When you are home I would like you to tell me which of them you think was looking at the other, because I have looked for a week and I still cannot say.