Black and grey linework and dotwork tattoo of a woman's face and a bird on the upper arm, with a blue sphere and orange crescent below.

Woman's face and bird on upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A woman's face with an elaborate, finely lined hair bun sits within a teardrop shape, with a bird perched across her face and its head reaching beyond the outline. The bird and face are shaded with dense stippling and fine hatching in black and grey, while a blue sphere and an orange crescent below add small areas of colour. The design fills the upper arm with a clean outline and a plain green garment and brick wall behind it.

Fine line Dotwork Upper arm Woman Face Bird Hair bun Sphere Crescent

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

The ovens at Hallam Row were lit before the church bell, and Mirren Dale was always the first through the back door with her sleeves already rolled. That winter the bread came out dark and heavy, because the flour had gone sour in the mill and nobody would say so. Mirren kneaded it anyway. She tied her hair up in a great coiled bun, pinned with a bone comb, so the dough would not catch on loose strands.

Keep reading

On the morning the crescent moon hung low over the chimneys, a blackbird landed on the sill above the proving tray. It was an ordinary bird with one white feather at the throat. It looked at her, then at the warm loaves, then at her, the way a customer does when deciding whether to haggle. Mirren tore off a heel of the bad bread and set it on the sill. The bird ate, took a second piece, and flew off over the roofs toward the river.

The next day the flour was fresh. A carter had found a sack of it in a ditch, and nobody asked him where it came from. The loaves rose high and pale. Mirren kept the bone comb in her apron pocket for years after, and every dawn she left a crust on the sill, though the blackbird never came back for it. The baker's boy said it was hardly a fair trade, and Mirren agreed, but she kept leaving the crust all the same.