Watercolour-style tattoo of a woman in a feathered headdress with a pink flower and skull across the upper back and shoulder.

Watercolour woman in feather headdress on back

Back · Mixed · Photo

A woman in a feathered headdress with closed eyes and red face markings is the central subject, with a skull-like form beneath her and a pink flower with a small skull at the top right. The linework is loose and painterly, with soft blended shading, dripping splashes and trailing feather shapes. Colour is dominant, with red, orange, yellow, green and teal washes balanced by black accents.

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

Dear Nell,

Keep reading

The paint on the tavern sign finally dried on Tuesday, though it took three coats of varnish before I'd let Mr Pascoe hang it. You will laugh when you see her. He wanted a barmaid with a sensible bonnet and a pint on a tray, and I gave him a woman with her eyes shut, a crown of jay feathers and a wash of red down one cheek, as if she has been out in weather. He grumbled about the splashes running off the bottom edge. I told him the sea does that too, and he could hardly argue with the harbour.

The shape under her chin was my mistake, or maybe not. I mixed the ochre too thin on the first pass and it bloomed into something like a face turned away, so I left it. Every evening after the boats came in I stood in the lane with a cold cup of tea and tried to decide whether it was a shadow or a secret. Mrs Penhallow from the chandlery said a thing like that brings bad luck. I said the pub had enough of that already.

On Thursday a boy came off the ferry, soaked through, asking for the old quay. He stopped dead under the sign and read the words I had lettered along the bottom in plain black capitals: KEEP THE LIGHT ON. He said nothing. He just touched the pink flower in the corner, the one with the small skull in its middle, and then he went off into the rain towards the point, where the lamp has been dark since your father's time.

I've been meaning to ask you whether the lamp keeper's cottage still has its good kettle. If it does, I might walk out there on Sunday and see if the boy came back.

More like this

Colour traditional tattoo of a woman in a feathered headdress holding a tomahawk, with red flowers below, on an upper arm.
Feathered headdress woman with flowers on an upper arm
Colour neo-traditional tattoo of a dark-haired mermaid with teal scales, red roses and a conch shell, on the upper arm.
Mermaid with roses and shell on a limb
Neo-traditional tattoo of a moustached man in a bowler hat and a woman with pearls and earrings, beside a red rose, on an upper arm.
Man and woman portrait with rose on upper arm
Colour traditional tattoo of a woman in profile wearing a red rose and gold coin headdress, on a limb.
Profile portrait with red rose headdress
Colour tattoo on an upper arm and shoulder showing a sugar skull woman with a cigarette beside red roses and a skull, with black ink splashes.
Sugar skull woman and roses on upper arm
Colour realism tattoo of a woman with sugar skull face paint, red autumn leaves and a keyhole on her forehead, on a calf.
Sugar skull portrait with autumn leaves on a calf
Side of a torso showing a shaded skull with pink roses, blue accents and ink drips in a painterly, watercolour-like style on the ribs.
Skull and roses watercolour on the ribs
Colour traditional tattoo of a pin-up woman with bangs, a blue feather fan and teal clouds across an upper arm and shoulder.
Pin-up woman with feather fan on upper arm
Black and grey realism portrait of a woman with long hair, a hand raised to her head and red lips, tattooed on the outer thigh, with flowers beside her.
Portrait of a woman with flowers on a thigh
Colourful watercolour-style tattoo of a woman's face and a small songbird on the upper arm, with splashes of red, blue and teal.
Watercolour woman and bird on upper arm
Black and grey realism tattoo of a blindfolded winged woman with red splashes and cracking stone limbs, placed on the calf.
Blindfolded winged figure turning to stone on a calf
Black and grey Japanese style dragon with red and white cherry blossoms tattooed along the side of the ribs.
Dragon and cherry blossoms on ribs

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.