Colour tattoo of a bird of paradise flower with orange, pink and yellow petals and a green and blue stem, on a person's shoulder and upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bird of paradise flower on the shoulder

Botanical · Shoulder · Colour · Photo

A bird of paradise flower with pointed orange, pink and yellow petals sweeps across the shoulder and upper arm, with a long green and blue stem curving down the arm. The petals use soft blended shading and smooth gradients rather than hard outlines, giving the flower a painterly, dimensional look. The warm colours stand out against the skin, and the stem leads the eye down from the shoulder.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, we pitched on the cliff field at Hythe on Tuesday and the wind has not stopped since. The lads say it's the sea trying to get into the big top. I've been inside the paint wagon with the flap tied down, working on the new panel for the Waltzer, and every time the canvas cracks I lose my place.

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Mrs Okonedo asked me for a flower. Not a rose, not a lily, she said, something that looks like it's about to fly. I told her I knew the one. You remember the glasshouse at Kew we crept into when Father took us to the gardens, the humid air and the water dripping off the ferns? There was a plant in a tub by the door with petals like the tips of flames, orange going to pink, and a stalk that bent over as if it meant to take off. Dad said it was a bird of paradise. I thought he was having us on.

So I mixed the cadmium into the white, then a little rose madder, and worked it wet on wet so the edges ran into each other without any line between them. The hard part is the stem. It has to be green at the root and blue where it bends, and it must look like it's leaning into the wind. I painted it three times before it stopped looking like a garden hose.

This morning the wind dropped and the sun came through the flap in a long stripe. Mrs Okonedo stood in the doorway with her tea, looked at the panel for a long time, and said that's the one that's going to fly off the wagon. I think she meant it kindly. Love, Tom

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