Colour tattoo of a black tree silhouette with birds, watercolour splashes in blue, green, pink and purple, and Celtic knotwork roots, on an upper arm.

Tree and birds with watercolour sky on upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A black silhouette of a bare tree fills the centre of the design, with several birds perched in its branches and flying above. The tree roots lead into a circular Celtic knotwork band at the base. Behind the silhouette, loose watercolour washes in blue, green, pink, purple and yellow spread across the skin, while the linework and knotwork stay solid black.

Botanical Upper arm Tree Bird Celtic knot Knotwork Watercolour Branches Root

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The dough had rested since two, and when I pressed a thumb into it the dent stayed, which meant it was ready. Out past the yard wall the sky was still the colour of a bruise going off, but the blackbirds had started on the ash tree above the bin store, and Dad always said they were the only honest clock in Hallam Street.

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Dad had planted that ash the year I was born, and he never once let anyone prune it. Every morning since his funeral I've come in through the back, switched on the oven, and looked up at it. In February its branches are bare, and the birds sit on them like punctuation, sharp little shapes against a sky that goes from grey to blue to something nearly pink while the loaves prove.

This morning a rook dropped down and walked along the bench by the proving racks, eyeing the seeded tin as if it owed him money. I shooed it, laughing, and it lifted off with a clatter that rattled the glass. Flour dust rose with it and caught the first light through the high window, and for a moment the whole kitchen was gold and grey and faintly blue.

I loaded the first batch at ten to six. When I went out to the yard with a flask, the ash had three birds in it and the sky above was pink. I left the heel of the loaf on the step, the way he used to, and went back in before the van arrived.