Wolf's Paw Tattoo

The shape is made of what is missing

Look at the print and you have a paw: four toes and a large pad, with claw marks set above them. Nothing joins those shapes together. The paw exists because of the bare skin between them, and that is the part nobody prints.

Inside each shape is a night woodland in turquoise and near black, with winter trees and stars, and in the large pad a wolf on a ridge with its head raised, howling, over layered hills.

Negative space is the hardest thing to do well in tattoo work, because you cannot correct it. Ink can be added; unmarked skin cannot be recovered. Everything left blank has to be right the first time.

Which makes it a good one to try first

If you have been considering a real negative space piece, wearing this for a few days is a genuinely useful test. Designs that depend on empty areas look very different on a curved arm than they do flat on a screen.

The tattoo

9.8 x 6 cm, roughly the size of a hand's palm, so it sits well on a forearm, shoulder or ankle.

It lasts up to five days with care. Applied with a damp sponge to clean skin, hypoallergenic and made with natural glue.

See our guide to wolf temporary tattoos and the full wolf temporary tattoo range.

Free worldwide shipping, 7 to 12 business days. 30 day returns. See our shipping policy for details.