Botanical arm sleeve with two birds, peony flowers and leaves in black and grey, with red linework on the shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Birds and peonies on an arm sleeve

Botanical · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

The sleeve shows two small birds perched among peony flowers, leaves and sprigs of berries, with lace-like patterns at the lower edge. The linework is fine and detailed, with soft shading in the petals and feathers and solid black in the darker areas. Most of the design is in black and grey, with small red dots among the berries and red linework across the top of the shoulder.

Botanical Upper arm Forearm Bird Songbird Peony Flower Leaf Berry Lace Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You reach the top of the Kessel Pass an hour before the snow decides to fall, and the mule stops at the cairn as though it has an appointment there. Below, the valley lies spread like a torn lace cuff, grey walls and the faded green of the hay meadows. Your sister told you the birds would find you if you kept still, so you sit on the cold rock with the bobbins in your lap and wait.

Keep reading

Two small brown songbirds land in the stunted rowan beside the shelter, wings folded tight. Someone planted peonies here long ago, and their heads hang heavy and dark with rain among the leaves. You have carried a pattern for six weeks, a lace collar for the bishop's housekeeper, every leaf and berry inked on squared paper. The birds peck at the red berries, then turn their heads toward your lap, as though they are reading it too.

The housekeeper wants the collar by the feast, and you unroll the paper to find your mistake. The lower border is a bramble where a peony should be, a copy of nothing. The pair lift off and head south over the ridge into weather you cannot see. You take up the pencil and redraw the flower the way it truly grows, heavy-headed and leaning toward the path.

By dusk the snow has come and the mule has gone on without you. At the inn below, the housekeeper holds the finished collar to the lamp and asks who drew the border. You tell her the birds did. She does not argue, and the lace throws its small black shadows across the table like feathers settling.