Colourful tiger tattoo with black stripes across the side of the ribs, shaded in loose orange, pink and yellow washes.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Watercolour-style tiger along the ribs

Ribs · Colour · Photo

A tiger is shown mid-stride, facing down and to the right, across the side of a torso. The black linework of the stripes and facial features sits over soft, bleeding washes of orange, pink, yellow and red that also fill the body and trail off into the background of the design. The composition follows the curve of the ribs, with the tail and back legs extending toward the hip.

Ribs Tiger Stripe

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the frost has been on the yard for eleven days now and Father has stopped pretending he can feel his fingers. I'm writing this by the range because the lamp oil has run low and I'd rather spend it on you than on the cows. You'll want to hear about the tiger, though nobody else in Hollow Ferry will believe me.

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It came off the Lowestoft road on the Tuesday, when the fog was thick enough to swallow the hedges. The Pargeter travelling show had broken an axle at the crossroads, and the lads had left their painted cloth banners strung across the cart to dry. Something got loose from them in the wind. I went out with the pail and saw a streak of orange come over the stubble field, pink at the edges, bleeding into the grey as if someone had dipped a brush in the sunset and flicked it at the frost. It stopped by the gate, turned its head, and looked straight at me with one yellow eye.

Then the fog lifted and it was only a banner, torn at one corner, a tiger caught mid-stride with black stripes painted over the wash. Mr Pargeter swore at it and spat in the snow. But I kept thinking how it had moved before the wind dropped, and how the colour ran down its flank like heat coming off a kiln.

I've hung it in the barn over the hay bales. The cows don't mind it. Father says it's rubbish and he'll cut it up for the calf pen. I told him he could try. Come home for lambing, and bring your paints if you have any left.