Two small black feather tattoos sit on the inner forearms of two people, one above the other.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two matching feather tattoos on forearms

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows two forearms, one above the other, each with a small feather tattoo in black ink. The upper feather has a fine central quill and delicate barbs, while the lower feather is bolder with more solid black fill. The soft, slightly grainy background and warm skin tones give the image a film-photo feel.

Forearm Feather Quill Matching tattoo

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 gull came down on the gallery rail just as you were trimming the wick, scattering salt and a single grey feather that snagged on the brass. Maud reached it before you did. She held it up to the lamp and said it was too handsome to waste on a bird that had only been sulking. You told her gulls never drown, they just sulk, and she laughed loudly enough that it carried down the spiral stair to Father, who was counting paraffin cans in the store and swearing at the tally.

Keep reading

That winter the fog came in thick off the Skerry and stayed a fortnight. Father rowed to the mainland for coal and did not come back when the wind backed round. By then Maud had the feather pressed flat in her Bible. Each night she climbed up with you, and each night you sat on the cold iron steps with a needle, a thimble of lamp black, and a pen nib she had sharpened on the whetstone, trying to draw the thing she had carried since the gull. Her first attempt came out with a fine spine and barbs like pencil hairs. Yours came out heavy and dark, the way the sea looks at dusk.

On the twelfth night the fog thinned, and a small boat was pulling for the landing. You saw it from the gallery, a lantern bobbing low, and you did not leave the light. Maud did. She went down the rock with the lamp black still on her fingers, and you kept the beam turning and counting so the men out there would know where the stones were. When she came back up, wet to the elbow, there was a grey feather stuck to her oilskin and Father behind her, coughing and alive.

The next morning you laid the two drawings side by side on the sill, one fine, one bold, and neither of you could say which was the truer copy. Father came up, looked at them for a long while, and said nothing at all. That afternoon Maud took the ink pot down the stair, and by supper you each wore the same grey bird, one fine, one bold, where the light could always find it.