Split image: on the left, pale scarred skin on an arm; on the right, a black and grey rose with leaves and buds tattooed on the upper arm in a traditional style.

Black and grey rose tattoo beside scarred skin

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The left panel shows smooth, pale skin with raised, horizontal scar lines and no ink. The right panel shows a black and grey rose with shaded petals, outlined leaves and small buds, with bold black outlines and soft grey shading across the petals. The composition is a side-by-side pairing of the untattooed skin and the finished tattoo, with the design filling most of the right-hand frame.

Botanical Traditional Upper arm Rose Leaves Bud Scar Flower

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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 tin of polish sat on the windowsill of the back room in Saltcombe, where the fog came in off the harbour each morning and left its salt on the glass. My grandfather had made pewter for the fishing families for forty years: plates, tankards, and the little tokens they hung on wheelhouse doors. Most of it was plain. The pieces he was proud of had a rose punched into the rim, petals beaten out from the back with a dome-headed tool, so the shadows stayed where they fell.

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When he died the shop sign went to a cousin in Plymouth and the moulds came to me, along with a crate of plates gone black in the damp. Everyone had an opinion. Mrs Penhallow wanted her wedding plate shining for the tea table. Tom Keast wanted the bell tokens bright enough to sell at the Sunday market. I did what I was asked for a month and hated every result. The roses looked like they had been painted onto a mirror, flat and loud.

On a wet Tuesday I left one plate as it was. I rubbed only the high points, where a thumb would rest, and let the grey settle into the hollows. The rose came up out of the dark like something surfacing. The leaves stood clear where the metal had been worked thin, and the buds on the stem looked as though they were holding their breath.

Mrs Penhallow came in for her plate that afternoon. I wrapped the old one in tissue and she stood at the counter a long time, turning it under the lamp. "It looks like it remembers," she said. I didn't argue. I put the kettle on and let her decide.