Small watercolour-style owl tattoo in purple, pink and red with a starry crown, on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Watercolour owl on the ribs

Ribs · Colour · Photo

A small owl, seen from the side and facing right, sits on a branch-like perch with its head turned towards the viewer. Its wings and crown are shaded with purple and starry speckles, while the chest is softened in pink and red with a pale face disc. The soft, blended colour sits on light skin with a rust-coloured garment at the lower edge of the frame.

Ribs Owl Bird Star Night sky

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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

Sit closer, the lot of you, and mind the coal dust on the step. No, Tomas, the owl was not a bad omen, whatever your mother told the chapel women. The owl was the only thing awake when the cage stuck at the Drift on the night of the great thaw. It was white as a candle in the lamp light, and it sat on the old winding wheel and would not be shifted.

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Ask my father how he knew to go down. He said the bird turned its face round to look at him, the way a woman turns to see if you are still following her home. Then it dropped off the wheel and went out through the air shaft, and the sky above the pit head was full of stars that had no business being there in a February fog. Purple they were, like bruises on a sunset, and speckled like frost on a sleeper's shoulder.

Three men were under the stone that night, and the rope was frayed, and the foreman had already written them down as lost. But my father followed the owl's line across the sky, not the stars, because the owl knew the old shaft the company had sealed for fear of gas. It flew over that place, and where it settled, he dug. He dug with his hands until the nails came off.

So when you go down tomorrow and the lamp goes dim, do not look for the bright ones. Look for the pale face turned towards you, and trust the thing that is watching the dark on your behalf. That is all the wisdom I have, and it cost your great-grandfather a finger.