Colour tattoo of a stag beetle in a watercolour style on a lower leg, inside dashed circles with green, yellow and purple washes.

Watercolour beetle on a calf

Other · Colour · Photo

A stag beetle sits at the centre of the design, outlined in dark linework and filled with soft brown, orange and yellow washes. Two dashed circles frame it, with splashes of green, teal, yellow and purple bleeding outwards and fine drips running below the body. The composition is centred on a calf, with the beetle filling most of the visible skin.

Other Beetle Circle Splatter Drip

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dearest Nell, you will never guess what came in through the terrace doors on Saturday night, halfway through the Lindy Hop. A stag beetle, as big as my thumb, with jaws like a pair of curling tongs. It came straight across the parquet and settled on the hem of Mrs Abernethy's green chiffon, and she shrieked loud enough to stop the band.

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Mr Farrant, who manages the Winter Garden and has never once in six years mopped up anything himself, got down on his knees with a tumbler and a postcard. He had the beetle under the glass before the trombone player finished his bar. I was told to take it out to the rose beds, which I did, though I confess I held it up to the lamp first. Its wing cases were brown as strong tea, and the green underneath caught the light like the sea off Pegwell Bay.

The strange part is the paint. The rain had come on while we danced, and the awning over the steps had been drumming all evening, and where the beetle had crawled up the wall beside the door, a little rainbow of wet colour ran down the plaster in the same drips you see on a watercolour when the brush is too full. Mr Farrant says it is only damp in the distemper. I said nothing, but I put my finger to it, and it was still soft.

I have decided to take the Tuesday class in the afternoons instead, so I shall be dancing with the cloakroom boy, who is mortified and very sweet. Do write back. Your loving sister, Ivy.