Black and grey fine line drawing of a woman's face framed by snakes, a rose, a bird and a butterfly, shown as a tattoo design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Woman's face with snakes and flowers

Fine line · Black and grey · Flash

A woman's face sits at the centre, looking forward with long flowing hair that wraps around the composition. Snakes, a rose, a bird in flight, a butterfly and a strand of pearls surround the face, with the hair and creatures drawn in fine, detailed linework. The drawing uses only black ink on white with shading built from hatching and stippling, and the elements fill the frame evenly.

Fine line Botanical Woman Face Snake Rose Flower Bird Butterfly Pearl Hair

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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

The pearls came apart on the church steps, which my aunt Maud said was a bad omen and my cousin Lorna said was the best thing that could have happened, because it gave everybody something to do. I was the one on my knees in the gravel, gathering pearls while the photographer shouted about the light. Forty-one of them. I counted twice, then a third time, because I had promised my sister I would bring back every last one.

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The reception was in the vicarage garden, where the roses had not been pruned since the Coronation and the grass snakes lived under the compost heap. A swallow had built a nest above the porch, and a small white butterfly kept landing on the cake knife. Lorna's grandmother, Edith, a retired jeweller with hands like dried apricots, sat me down beside the marquee and handed me a needle, a reel of waxed thread and a jam jar of pearls.

"A necklace is only a promise that the knots will hold," she said, and she showed me how to tie one between each bead so that a single broken strand could not spill the lot. It took me most of the speeches. When I finally stood up, my fingers were sore and my back ached, and the bride was already laughing at something the best man had said.

Later, when Lorna turned so I could fasten the clasp at her nape, I found the knot I had tied at the very start was the only one that had not slipped. I did not tell her. I just let the pearls settle against her collarbone and stepped back to watch them catch the light.