Traditional style flash drawing of a colourful owl perched on a branch, with a rose partly visible at the bottom edge.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Traditional owl on a branch flash

Traditional · Colour · Flash

A colour flash drawing of an owl perched on a curving, leafless branch, with a wide-eyed face, a yellow scalloped wing and layered red, blue and navy feathers. Bold black outlines define the shapes, with solid fills and simple shading. Partial red roses and other motifs appear along the bottom left edge of the sheet.

Traditional Owl Branch Rose Flash sheet

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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You will laugh, but the owl sheet from your uncle's drawer is finally earning its keep. Mrs Okafor wants a banner behind the top table on Saturday, and she was firm that it must not be roses, though I have talked her into a branch with two small roses low down, as a sort of compromise. I have been at the kitchen table for three evenings with a jar of water and the tin of reds, trying to get the orange at the owl's beak to sit right against the gold.

The trick, I have decided, is the black. Every edge has to be bold enough to stop a room, so I go over the outlines twice and let the navy wing do the shouting. The scalloped yellow on its shoulder took most of Tuesday. My hand wobbled on the third row and I nearly wept into the brush, but then the scales lined up like a row of coins and I felt rather pleased with myself.

On Saturday the owl hung between two jugs of lilac, glaring at the guests as if it had heard every word of the speeches. Mr Okafor's father, who spent thirty years on the trawlers out of Grimsby, stood in front of it for a long while with his hands in his pockets. Then he said the bird looked like it had been sent to keep watch over the harbour, and he asked me to sign it on the back so the family would know who to blame. I wrote my name and the date beneath the branch.

Love, Hettie