Watercolour-style tattoo of a blue bird perched on a branch, with orange and red washes and paint drips, on a lower leg.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Watercolour-style bird on a branch on a calf

Calf · Colour · Photo

A small blue bird sits on a thin branch at the centre of the design, with its body built from loose blue, orange and red washes. Paint-like splashes and drips in blue and red run down from the branch and spread across the surrounding skin, giving a loose, painterly effect. The bright colours dominate the composition against the soft skin tone of the leg.

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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

Dear Tom, the blue tit came back to the feeder on Tuesday, the first since the frost, and I stood at the scullery window with the kettle going cold and watched it for a full minute before I remembered to be sad about anything else. You'll say I'm soft. Dad would have said the same, only he'd have said it into his tea.

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The lads from Hollins have finished the lower barn roof, so the ewes will have a dry place to lamb in March. Mrs Pryce brought a tin of shortbread and a bag of ash for the yard. The paint tin you left in the milking parlour has gone solid. I tried to thin it with turpentine and only made a mess on the flagstones, red and blue running down the wall in streaks like the drips off the old gate.

I've kept the one good sheet of watercolour paper from your drawer. Last night, after the wireless went quiet, I tried a bird on a bare branch, wet colour dropped on wet paper so the blue bled into the orange I meant for a sunset. It came out looking more like a bruise than a robin, but it was the first thing I'd made in a month that didn't have an invoice attached.

Come up at New Year if the lanes allow. Bring the good brushes and don't tell me how to hold them. Sophie wants a painting of the blue tit, the proper kind, not one of mine. I told her you'd never sit still long enough for it to land. Love, Ruth.

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